


The Center of the Sun

by Ruaki



Category: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: Drabble, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:25:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 20,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1201243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruaki/pseuds/Ruaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of unrelated drabbles and ficbits for these two dorks that really had no place being their own story.  Updated with content whenever new content spills forth.  A couple of things have more mature content; I've noted so on their specific chapter notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. DFF x NoeHopu x Prototype

**Author's Note:**

> Before I started Libera Me, an idea of a Dissidia x Noel/Hope fusion had already been ruminating in my head. As a way of getting the ideas out, I did a 10 song drabble meme with the beginnings of the ideas that would eventually become Libera Me. If you've read that story, you'll see where some ideas made it in and some didn't.
> 
> Vague background for this prototype version: After Snow saves Hope’s life during the explosion/fall in Palumpolum, Hope wakes up in a pre-12th cycle. And instead of landing in Valhalla after wandering the wastes, Noel was brought by Cosmos to a pre-12th cycle.

**I. 구가의 서 (Gu Family Book)**

Being unable to remember anything about his past wasn’t often a hindrance.  They had a purpose here, and a forward purpose negated looking back.  But on quiet nights camping like this, with hazy stars and still air, there would come to mind an old, familiar scene.

He was sure he had something like a family—people he loved—as sure as he was that they were long gone.

A small blanket was held out to him; Noel glanced up at Rydia and she nodded toward a thin boy curled away from the others.

Noel didn’t understand how anyone would willingly choose loneliness.

 

**II. To the End of the Journey of Shining Stars (Baten Kaitos)**

"Hey, if we lose our memories when we come here… do we lose them when we go back?"

They were huddled beneath an enormous tree, rain slanting down across the plains.

Noel smiled at the young boy who had only introduced himself as the Onion Knight. “I don’t think you can ever forget the connections and memories you’ve made.  They’ve been etched in your heart.”

"That’s really corny," Hope scoffed, side-eyeing the taller boy as he wrapped his arms around himself against a sudden chill.

He didn’t miss the quick hurt that flitted across Noel’s eyes, even as Noel shrugged.

 

**III. Shadowland (Simon Wilkinson)**

Noel wondered how a land could be full of life but still so empty.  Scattered were the remains of civilization—the teeth of stonework, the fingers of metal sheeting.  Nature had buried most of it in a green deathshroud, bearing the weight of centuries.

In his world, it was simply empty.  Nothing green, nothing blue.  Just dust without wind, a burning arid sun, stale nights.

But there was something beautifully hopeful about this world, with its living emptiness, because they all stood together upon it.

He shared this with Hope and the boy gazed over the landscape, large green eyes reflective.

 

**IV. Jupiter Highway (Planetes)**

The training was brutal.  Hope never suspected Bartz to be such a hard taskmaster.

"You’re doing much better today."  Bartz smiled, crouching by his prone form.

Groaning, Hope covered his eyes with an arm.  This was torture, but he had to get stronger.  Noel had gotten hurt “protecting” him (again), and it made him angry thinking about it. So he had reluctantly asked Bartz to teach him new, stronger spells.

"No more practice for today." Bartz ruffled Hope’s hair.  "You can get serious mana burn if you use Holy too much.  It should really be used as a last resort."

 

**V. Sacred Distance (Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance)**

A hand on his shoulder—a placating touch but all he knew was the weight of it.  Words were spoken, but Hope’s world was filled only with the pyreflies escaping his fingers.

Hope’s inner cynic felt Noel was lucky, finally escaping the cycles.

But Hope would never see him again.

Etched in his heart was a string of quiet nights and wandering days, filled with idle talk and simple songs, gestures of solidarity and arguments of discontent, battles fought and won together.  There were many memories (not enough), his life marked by someone he would never see again.

He wouldn’t forget.

 

**VI. My Home, Sweet Home (Final Fantasy V ~Dear Friends ver.)**

Noel liked to sing. They were sometimes wordless, other times nonsense, but often bittersweet or wistful in sound.  His voice was untrained—Hope wouldn’t pay money to listen to it—but there was a raw emotion present which made him pause.

Once it was just the two of them—Hope had stopped wondering how it was always at least “the two of them”—in lonely highlands with no end.  Noel had suddenly leapt ahead, arms spread, voice lifted in wordless tune.  Alarmed, Hope had started to shush the hunter, concerned about enemies—

—when the hills sang back in echoes, alive and less empty.

 

**VII. Let butterflies spread until the dawn (Persona 1 PSP)**

Hope had been wandering the cycle longer than his erstwhile companion.  He wasn’t a hardened fighter like some of the other warriors of Cosmos, but he had a few battles under his belt—both here and from what he was slowly remembering of his own world.

But the first time he had faced a manikin that bore Noel’s likeness, he had hesitated.

Afterwards, bruised, battered, but alive, he had a terrible, contrived argument with the real Noel, because it was somehow all the hunter’s fault.

Hope didn’t speak to Noel for days.

(Hope never apologized either, because it  _was_  Noel’s fault.)

 

**VIII. Currents (Gensou Suikoden II Orrizonte)**

When Noel first met the Goddess, some pieces of his memory slotted into place.  He remembered wandering over desolate dunes, a setting sun on a dying world.

He had pleaded, had prayed…

This was his salvation?

The boy he had met enroute to the Sanctuary turned away while Cosmos spoke, as if he had heard it numerous times before.  Noel glanced at him—Hope—and there was something bitter and lonely in the boy’s expression; a bitter and lonely expression Noel had seen reflected in the rusted metal scrap walls of his village.

When everyone began to disperse, Noel trailed after Hope.

 

**IX. Sacrificial (The Binding of Isaac)**

Hope had approached the stream carelessly, but only after he drank his fill did he realize that he was not alone.

Mana thrummed just under the skin of his fingers as he casually splashed water over his hair and neck, cooling overheated skin even as his eyes sought his hidden adversary.

And there—! With surety, learned as a fugitive l’Cie, he shot flames toward an outcropping.  There was a startled yelp and a young man jumped away, flipping to his feet, naked blades shining in the sun.

Hope did not hesitate; lightning followed flame, driven by the desire to survive.

 

**fin. My Eden (Yisabel)**

Noel tensed as the pale-haired man approached.

"Hope, is that you?" Serah asked, surprised.

"I’m grateful you remember me," the man replied warmly.

Immediately Noel’s hackles rose.  He cut into that conversation quickly and the man turned green eyes toward him.  The introduction was a mouthful—Noel only remembered the important part (Hope Estheim)—when the man’s gaze grew sharp.

"And you, you must be Noel."

"Nice guess." Noel was acting tough, he knew, but he was unsettled.  "Who told you?"

"I’ve been waiting for you," and while Hope’s smile was directed at them both, his eyes remained on Noel alone.


	2. 3AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a short story and an illustration for Halloween. The idea was spawned by re-reading some Bradbury short stories, and his idea that 3am is the real witching hour. The idea spun off a folklore style AU in a modern setting. I had hoped to develop this thing into something much fuller at a later point; we'll see if that happens.

Midnight long held a superstitious significance, but Hope felt it was rather unjustified.  _Things_  were still awake and alive at midnight, moving with renewed vigor as insomnia called its customers to once again frequent its sleepless establishment.  No, he believed the true witching hour was 3 A.M., when even the moon hid her face from the still, quiet earth, and only the stars witnessed that blur between the seen and unseen.

The black landscape drifted by outside the filmy, dirty window, glowing with starlight.  Out here in the country, the dark was a true dark, a night unfettered and exposed, like a woman lounging over empty plains with the October wind whispering secrets over her curves.  He had forgotten this. In the city at this hour, the light pollution stained the black with a neon glow and the starlight shut out by its aura. 

A tinny voice rambled incomprehensible words over the antique radio, and the old farmer fiddled with the knob.  A burst of static added to Hope’s headache, and now the tinny voice was replaced by a tinny orchestra.

Hope turned on his phone and flipped through his messages, staring at the text he had received on the train as if the words would alter right before his eyes.  The trip had been a disaster from the start, and he wondered if some otherworldly force was working against his return to his home.

Home.  It had been a long time since he had been there, not since his mother had passed.  He had packed up and left his father to move to the city, staying with a relative while he attended school.  Even so, he maintained a cool relationship with his father, exchanging cards every birthday and Christmas, but this would be the first time Hope had seen him—spoken with him—since that fateful day.

He had debated on just turning around and returning back to the city after he received the short, impersonal text (‘ _Had an emergency, won’t be back till tomorrow evening’_ ), but it had taken a lot of courage to even come.

And he wasn’t returning home just to see his father.  Hope had grown up in that house and even after three years of separation, he still thought of it as home.  He knew his mother’s presence still haunted every pore of that space, and that scared him more than meeting his dad again.  He had run away from his mother’s death for so long, he wasn’t sure how well his wounds had healed.

But he made it this far.  His train had been delayed before arrival and delayed again enroute; and when he finally arrived at his destination, the outpost had long shut down.  He had been the only one to disembark onto the weathered platform, flickering yellow sodium lights barely lighting the deep country night.  Without knowing what to do, he walked to the tiny bus station, but those too stopped running for the evening.

It was a good twenty or more miles to his home, and he floundered there, wondering what to do—if he should attempt walk or just sleep at the station for the night—when yellow eyes crested the edge of the hill, widening into the round headlights of an old, beaten farm truck.

Hope wasn’t a big fan of hitchhiking, but he was exhausted and frustrated so he had flagged the truck down.  At first he thought the truck would keep going—who would be out this late at night?—but it slowed and the dirt-smeared driver’s side window rolled down.  The farmer was long in face like an old hound dog, grizzled and droopy eyed, chewing tobacco which he spat into a can next to him.  He had eyed Hope disapprovingly; the teenager was still wearing his university clothes, carrying only a single bag, and Hope knew he looked more city slicker than native.  But then those watery, red-rimmed eyes lit up and a toothy grin wrinkled the farmer’s face into a prune.

“Ol’ Bart’s boy!  Yer all grown up!” the farmer bellowed and Hope answered politely, with a polite smile, politely listening as the farmer yammered on before politely asking for a ride.

So here he was, bumping along in the clanky, battered truck, listening to an insomniac ramble over the radio in between subpar recordings of Saint-Saens, listening to the farmer talk about nothing over it.  The dark hills rolled on and Hope watched his reflection watch it in the dirty window.

Eventually the truck rolled to a stop at a fork, a crudely paven road lined with cattle fence cutting off sharply from the two-lane highway.

“Yer sure ya don’t want me dropping ya off?”  The farmer turned a pale eye on him and Hope shook his head with a polite smile and polite thanks.  The trip had been long, his headache was getting worse, and it was only a few more miles to his home down the lane.

“It’s good ta see ya back, Hope,” the farmer said in good-bye, slapping Hope on the back as the teeanger struggled with the heavy passenger door before he finally spilled out.  “Be careful goin’ back!  And remember, don’t talk ta strangers!”

Hope agreed that he wouldn’t, though he wasn’t a kid any more and felt that kind of warning to be rather patronizing.  He shut the door; the clang reverberated through the dead countryside and he winced.  He could hear the radio from inside the car, and the farmer grinned and waved at him, a blurry figure behind the dirty glass.  Hope stood there and watched the truck drive off, the red taillights now angry eyes staring at him for his ingratitude before disappearing over a bend.  Eventually even the roar of the truck’s engine was nothing but an echo.

Shouldering his bag, Hope’s loafers crunched over rock as he started down the lane.  The darkness was heavy and he pulled out his phone, turning it on.  Its electronic light cast long shadows into the darkness as he pointed it ahead, but all around its beam the night hovered with held breath for the chance to snuff it out.  The stars were brilliant overhead, each a clear diamond in the velvet sky, and he wistfully remembered the telescope his mother had gotten him for his birthday when he was eight.

Pale wisps of low fog curled around the grass, swirling around his feet.  The silence was a warm blanket in the brisk breeze; not even the insects were awake.  His footsteps were loud to his ears and he tried walking more quietly.  The fresh air, moistened with the smell of dying autumn, cleared his headache and he forgot his troubles for a while, enjoying the lonely night stroll.

To his right, a small blue firefly fluttered, flaring brilliantly and dimming.  Hope watched it dance, frowning.  It was too late of an hour and too late for the season for fireflies to be about.  But another blue firefly joined the first as he approached, and another, and another.  Their throbbing glow was almost liquid, like a flame, trailing behind them as they moved in a drunken bob, swimming in the faint wind, and Hope wondered if fireflies were ever as blue as that in his childhood.

Sudden cold fingers crawled up his spine, eliciting goosebumps though the night was not particularly cold.  His footsteps slowed and the darkness dropped like a curtain as he lowered his cellphone.  Curious fireflies gathered around him, their radiance a burn across his retina when they drifted across his vision.

A dark silhouette was perched atop one of the fence posts, fireflies playing about it, blue light streaking across dark clothes, playing across lips stretched in a smile.

At 3 A.M., everything was dead to the world.  At 3 A.M.,  the line between the Seen and Unseen Realms was blurred, where the earth was not the earth of the day or even the earth of midnight.

At 3 A.M., what was awake may just be a weary traveller, or an insomniac, or a night worker.

Or what was awake may just be…

(‘ _And remember, don’t talk ta strangers!’_ )

Azure flashed across teeth as the stranger spoke.

“Nice night for a stroll, huh?”


	3. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the last chapter of Libera Me, after Noel announces some good news and he and Hope proceed to uh... 'celebrate'... over Hope's students' homework.
> 
> Always wondered about the fall out of that, so I did a short, silly thing. Don't take it too seriously.

"Hey, Hope!" Noel said brightly as he burst into the den one evening.

Hope was sprawled on the plush carpet, his laptop before him and papers scattered around.  Immediately a panicked look crossed his face.

"No, stay right there!"  Hope pushed himself up, frantically gathering the papers together.  "You are not crushing these again."

Noel rolled his eyes, folding his arms over his chest.  ”That only happened once.”

"And then we proceeded to have sex on my students’ essays," Hope retorted, shooting Noel a warning look over his shoulder.

"… so?"  Noel was confused.  "Isn’t that something most people do?"

"No, most people do not have sex on other people’s homework!"  Hope was traumatized by the very thought.  Noel rolled his eyes again; that wasn’t what he meant.  "I couldn’t even return their work!  I just awarded passing grades and hoped they were pleased enough by the news not to question their missing essays."

Noel shrugged.  ”Honestly, I’m pretty sure most of your students—ow!”  He rubbed at the spot where the stylus connected with his forehead.  Hope really had good aim.  Noel face scrunched into a childish sulk.  ”I just wanted to discuss marriage with you,” he grumbled.

"Then definitely let me put these reports away before this conversation escalates," Hope replied as he quickly flung the papers across the room.


	4. Young Lust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had drawn an image of Hope dressed in Noel's shirt with a bit of a morning-after feel, and that spawned some conversation at tumblr. The idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I vomited up this thing in about an hour.

The alarm blared suddenly through the darkened room, blasting at octaves loud enough to call back the dead.  After a few minutes, a hand snaked out of the warmth of thick blankets and flailed around the nightstand before finally slamming down atop the alarm, silencing it.

As if satisfied with its duty, the hand stayed put, fingers blotting out the bright LED numbers stabbing through the pre-dawn darkness.

Finally, with a groan, Hope managed to move an inch toward the edge of the bed in an effort to get up.  An arm tightened around his middle, pulling him back.

“Where are you going?” Noel’s sleepy voice rose somewhere from the thick mound of covers next to him. 

“Early meeting.” 

The noise that came from Noel’s side of the bed may have been disagreeing or a snore; Hope wasn’t sure.  But the arm loosened and with some willpower, Hope untangled himself from Noel and the covers. 

The cold air hit his bare skin with awakening kisses.  Hope really hated mornings, but cold ones were the worst.  Rubbing the goosepimples on his arms, he only briefly entertained the idea of returning to bed (and its warm occupant) before rubbing the sleep from his face with a silent sigh.

First thing was first: clothes.  They were strewn about the floor and furniture in a haphazard manner from the night before; in the dark he managed to find his trunks but not his pants or shirt.  He did find Noel’s, though, and with a shrug, yanked on the shirt. It was a bit large, but it warded away some of the chill. 

Next: coffee.  Hope padded into the kitchen, bare toes curling against the cool linoleum tiles.  Despite being half-asleep, he managed the motions of setting the coffee maker a-burbling with practiced ease. Stifling a yawn, he sagged against the counter and watched for his precious black gold to start dripping into the pot. 

He was pouring the first precious cup when he heard feet slapping onto the tiles. 

Hope half-turned with a faint smile. “You don’t have to get up, No—” and he paused. 

Noel blinked sleepily at him, running a hand through tousled dark strands as he approached.   Even unbuttoned, Hope’s dress shirt was tight across his shoulders, the rumpled fabric stark against nut-brown skin.  It made the fading rosy scratches and love bites stand out more. 

And he was wearing nothing else. Hope’s eyes involuntarily dragged down the length of Noel’s torso, from the dips of his muscles into his navel, along the thin trail of hair leading right to— 

Hope whirled back around to his coffee mug, quickly sipping at it.  The liquid burned going down, and he wasn’t sure if the heat pooling in his belly was from that or arousal at the sight of a disheveled Noel wearing his clothes. 

“Oh… that’s where my shirt went…” Noel mumbled, and he pressed himself up against Hope’s back, legs and thighs brushing.  Arms snaked around Hope’s waist, hands sliding up the hem of the shirt.  His rough palms were warm against Hope’s skin. 

Hope’s fingers tightened around the coffee mug until his knuckles turned white.  No, that heat definitely wasn’t from the coffee. 

A nose nuzzled the nape of his neck, breath tickling the fine hairs there.  “It’s cold.  Come back to bed—you’re my best blanket and the others aren’t cutting it.” 

“It’s not cold,” Hope replied rather calmly, and he wasn’t really lying, because between the heat of Noel’s body and the heat rising from inside his own, it was getting uncomfortably warm indeed. 

A disgruntled sound rumbled from deep in Noel’s chest and Hope could feel it against his back.  Noel’s scent filled his head, layered with the musk of sex, and Hope quickly lifted his mug to his nose, inhaling deep the smell of his coffee.  It was a poor substitute. 

Noel shifted sinulously against him and Hope nearly dropped his cup.  “Thirty minutes,” the hunter murmured into his ear. 

Without thinking, Hope’s eyes flicked to the clock mounted on the front of the oven.  He’d be late to the meeting, but it’d be… what did they call it? Fashionably late? 

Setting down his mug, Hope squirmed around in Noel’s arms to face him.  Blue-violet eyes watched him from beneath long lashes, hardly as sleep-clouded as Hope had expected.  The blood rushed to Hope’s cheeks; it was easy to forget that Noel wasn’t as simple-minded or innocent as he acted. 

“Fifteen minutes,” Hope said, breaking eye contact.  His slim fingers sought out one of the scars marring Noel’s chest and traced it with a feather touch. 

Lips touched Hope’s temple.  “Twenty.” 

Hope did some math in his head, though his numbers may have been a bit jumbled because Noel was quickly becoming incredibly distracting.  Well, whatever. He’d be ‘fashionably late.’   Yes.  That sounded reasonable. 

“Not a second longer.” 

Hope felt more than saw Noel’s grin; a leg swept Hope off his own feet, before he was swooped up into strong arms. 

He may have to amend his opinion about cold mornings.


	5. between 1 and 0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many Noel/Hope fics deal with the Future is Hope ending because. You know. That's pretty much what sailed the ship.
> 
> I wanted to do a slight take on it as well. Did this in a couple of hours.

Hope sighed, dragging both palms over his head to rest at the nape of his neck and squeeze at the knot there. The penthouse granted to him by the Academy was silent except for the faint hum of lights and the muffled rush of water from the shower further within. Even outside, in the dim hours between midnight and morning, the city was quiet.

It only made the thoughts spinning in his head all the louder.

They—and by 'they,' he meant his new bodyguard and himself—had only finished dealing with the aftermath of today's—( _no, yesterday's_ )—revelations scant an hour ago—if 'finished' was even the proper term for it.

Hope really didn't have time to process it as it had happened; typical of Snow, to rush in via dramatic entrance and exit with aplomb, leaving nothing behind but a firm belief in providence.

' _Someone gave this to you. Someone like… Caius?_ '

The reveal and result had flown past in a flurry, as Snow had info-dumped some rather important news like it had been just the weather forecast, before whisking off with Serah and leaving Hope behind ( _again_ ). Left behind and left alone.

Alyssa had betrayed him.

The interrogation had been long; the tactics weren't inhumane, but they were tiring in repetition. Hope had only watched from a video feed, remaining silent the entire time. Alyssa really hadn't known much, but what she did know she had been reluctant to say; a bitter resentment burned in her eyes and it was a side of her Hope never knew.

He always considered himself excellent at reading people. It was something he specifically trained himself in, and it became a useful diplomacy tool as he gradually drew on more and more of his father's administrative duties during the Academy's formulating years. And while he wasn't the best of friends with Alyssa—( _or even a close friend_ )—she was a colleague with whom he had collaborated closely in achieving a number of monumental discoveries. They had been through much together and it had been a bond he valued.

Alyssa loved her work; gossip around the departments speculated she and Hope maintained a relationship outside of professionalism, but Hope knew that there was nothing she could love but her work. And that, Hope realized ( _without her ever saying a word_ ), was why she had betrayed his trust and why she had targeted Serah and Noel. Something Serah and Noel would've done jeopardized her work, and like a mother, she had to protect it at all costs.

And Hope knew she blamed him as well. How many times had she smiled or joked with him, hiding her true feelings through a friendly facade? When did it start? They weren't friends, but she was a constant, someone who was with him when everyone left him behind, someone who stayed with him when he began to drift. What she was loyal to didn't matter; they shared the same goal and she was  _present_ , and that's all Hope had desired.

How much of it had been real?

But she hadn't given up many answers about anything, so Hope supposed he would never know.

Another sigh escaped him. Rubbing cold hands over his face, he slowly rose from his chair, feeling several hundred years old—( _not too far from the mark_ )—and shrugged out of his uniform jacket. Without the heavy material, he started to work at the kinks in his shoulders, trying to ease the tension from his muscles.

' _Stay alive._ '

' _You're going to be assassinated exactly three days from now._ '

Snow's other bombshell had surprised him initially, but it didn't weigh on his mind. It seemed small in the scheme of things, despite Snow's earnest belief in Hope's importance to the future. Hope was not naive enough to imagine that the world was all roses and rainbows during these centuries after the fall of the fal'Cie; there was always someone discontent, somewhere, and sometimes it was the wrong people who became discontent.

Rather, he had been more surprised that someone felt that all their problems would be solved if Hope had simply died.

No different than Alyssa.

Maybe that was the problem with everything: a thought process which felt elimination was the only path to freedom. No compromise or diplomacy, nothing but a binary of all or nothing. And had they—( _Light and Snow and Vanille and all_ )—been any different in their dealings with the fal'Cie—( _though they did try to kill us first_ )? Was it really all or nothing?

"Maybe sending Noel off was a bad idea," Hope said aloud in attempt to break his thoughts.

Snow had whisked off Serah, leaving behind her erstwhile companion on guard—( _babysitting_ )— duty. Noel didn't protest, remaining dutifully by Hope's side as the former Director worked with the military about Alyssa, but when the two had arrived at Hope's current—( _temporary_ )—residence—( _not a home_ )—Noel had stood there, floundering like a lost puppy.

Hope felt sorry for him; the change in plans had been abrupt and while he wasn't sure what kind of trust was between Serah and this kid, Noel had been pretty much abandoned with a kind-of-sort-of stranger in an out-of-way time, with a duty that wasn't in the initial job description.

He was also caked with the dirt and smell of eons, so Hope seized the opportunity to spend some time with his thoughts without a witness and forced Noel to go bathe. Now Hope was regretting it; he had a tendency to overthink when left to his own devices and too often it spiraled into negativity.

Hope frowned, glancing at his watch.

But that had been nearly an hour ago.

He could still hear the sound of the shower running. Was Noel okay? Hope actually didn't know much about the young man; running hither-thither with Serah trying to fix the broken timeline did not leave much room for casual conversation. And the time-traveller was someone Hope had trouble reading; that wasn't to say Noel was disingenuous—( _quite the opposite_ )—but Hope found he couldn't quite put a finger on Noel's thoughts. And Hope grew self-conscious—( _anxious_ )— when he couldn't tell what people were thinking.

Chewing on his lip, Hope padded through the master bedroom and approached the bathroom door hesitantly. He couldn't hear any other sound but the steady spray of water.

Taking a deep breath, he rapped his knuckles against the metal door. "Noel?" he called.

No answer.

Hope frowned again, staring at hard at the door as if it would suddenly tell him what to do. Shockingly, no answers were forthcoming. So he tried again, knocking with more authority. "Noel, are you all right?"

Nothing but the sound of water.

Worry blossomed in his stomach. Did Noel fall and crack open his head? Did he have some kind of health issue Hope was unaware of, and suffered some sort of attack?

( _Maybe he disappeared like the rest of them._ )

The last thought flitted by like shooting star but the worry heightened into concern—( _panic_ )—and this time Hope didn't knock. A single pound upon the barrier and a cry of Noel's name was the only precursor before Hope opened the ( _unlocked_ ) door and rushed inside the steam-filled room.

He nearly ran into Noel, who caught him easily by the shoulders before they collided. Hope didn't register Noel's words—(' _Hope, are you okay? What's wrong?_ ')—eyes instinctively roving over Noel's naked, brown body for wounds or bruises, hands reflexively outstretched to heal: a survival tactic ingrained in him during that brief time of his youth where life and death were only seconds apart.

No blood, but fading bruises and a myriad of scars of different ages marked damp skin; without thinking, Hope rested his fingertips upon a particularly ugly set, paled by years, shredding across Noel's chest.

Noel was too young to have marks like this. But hadn't they all been, once? The worst Hope had ever gotten left only a thin white line along his calf, but he had seen them all get hurt. They had all been young; he was the youngest, but Vanille was young too—yet tasked by her people, with Fang, to do horrible things that left scars without and within. He thought of them in their pillar, supporting a world they were once ordered to destroy, and thought about the scars on Fang's arm and the scar Vanille showed him next to her left breast.

Snow and Light had been older than he, but they had scars all the same, and the eldest of them all bore his own too, with the worst being the scar left by the ordeal of his son.

And that was how it was; the old would task the young to inherit the future, leaving them wounded and waiting to heal as the present turned into tomorrow, and with those scars, the young would then become old to repeat the cycle. It was the duty of the wise to the able, the experienced to the eager, and Noel was too young to have such scars, yet now he was tasked with protecting Hope's life and Hope wondered if Noel meant to bear the scars for that if necessary.

"Hope!" Rough hands suddenly squeezed Hope's shoulders painfully and he snapped his head up, shaking himself out of his tired reverie.

Blue-violet eyes, screened by dripping bangs, stared down at him with confused concern. Droplets were caught in long eyelashes. "Hey, what's up? You just came screaming in here and I thought something had happened to you."

"Ah…" Hope could feel embarrassment pinching his cheeks. Noel must've hurried out at Hope's cry; the water was still running. "You were in the shower for quite some time, so when you didn't answer my call, I became alarmed."

"Oh." Noel's hands dropped from Hope's shoulders and he rubbed his head sheepishly. "Sorry about that. I, uh… fell asleep." He gestured—( _the movement fluid but ungainly too_ )—at the stall behind him. "Those things are pretty soothing."

"I see." Hope smiled faintly in relief. He didn't know much about Noel's life other than sweeping generalizations, but the few things he was able to infer indicated that small pleasures like a 'shower' were not readily available.

Noel tilted his head at the smile, and something Hope couldn't read sparked in his eyes. "You were worried about me? I'm supposed to be the one protecting you."

"That doesn't mean I'm not capable of displaying any concern for your well-being. I'm naturally predisposed toward worrying for the people around me."

"Is that so? Makes sense, given all that you're doing."

Hope frowned. Was Noel mocking him?

"Still," Noel continued, "I guess that makes us partners, huh? Watching each other's backs."

Partners? Hope's frown deepened. His last partner had betrayed him. And the partner before that… she had disappeared without a trace. Both left him behind.

"Yes, I suppose," Hope finally said.

"Aren't you brimming with excitement?" Noel replied with a disarming grin, all teeth and good-humor, and Hope suddenly became hyper-aware that he was currently fondling the chest of an extremely attractive young man wearing nothing but the suit he was born with.

Hope's face heated up so fast that he could imagine the headlines—( _famous former Director died of spontaneous combustion_ )—and he jerked his hand away to fumble along a nearby towel rack, grabbing a fluffy cloth and shoving it under Noel's nose.

"Hm?" Noel blinked, taking the material.

"Could you… ah… cover yourself…"

"Oh." Hope could almost hear the click of Noel's realization. "Oh yeah. I forgot you people are sensitive to that sort of thing. Serah freaked out the first time too." Noel wrinkled his nose at the delicate sensibilities of the people of the past, but wrapped the towel around his waist. "I mean, what's the big deal?"

Hope wasn't sure it was an improvement; the white was stark against Noel's skin, flattering expanses of muscle. "You were also dripping onto the floor," Hope said, a bit defensively. He wasn't really willing to debate the concept of modesty—at least, not like this.

Noel shrugged, brushing wet strands of hair from his face. "Then let me finish and clean up here." His eyes slanted into a sly tease. "Unless you plan on sticking around while I get dressed?"

Ignoring the poke at his modern morals was the only thing Hope could do to prevent another unprofessional blush. He turned to leave. "I'll see to your bed."

"Thanks, but the floor's fine; I'm used to it."

"Noel," Hope said, and his voice took on all the authority he could muster, "as long as we are partners, I'll make sure you'll have a comfortable place to rest your head."

"Yeah?"

Hope glanced at Noel over his shoulder; the young man was gazing at him with that inscrutable expression. "Yes."

The smile Hope received was different from the cheerful, open ones he was used to witnessing; it was young and shy, but pleased. "Good to know that even here, someone cares about me."

Hope didn't know how to answer that. There was an echo in it that panged inside him. He could still feel Noel's warmth on his fingertips, the moistness of Noel's skin from the shower, the faint rhythm of Noel's heartbeat. Hope's fingers buried deep into his palm, as if to trap the sensations there forever.

(' _someone cares about me_ ')

Noel had been real under his hand, present,  _here_.

And that scared Hope more than he wanted to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I wanted to do a take on the Future is Hope ending, but honestly, I just wanted to write Hope groping a naked Noel.
> 
> sorry if you thought i was trying to be deep and shit but honestly i just wanted some skinship


	6. small changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick thing.

“You’ve gotten taller.”

“Huh?” Noel didn’t even look back at him, continuing to put up their groceries.

They had been living together for a few years now; it was probably why Hope had never noticed it. Small changes like that were pervasive when one saw a person every day—he didn’t know when it had happened, but he was sure of it. “You’re taller.”

“Is that even possible?” Noel finally twisted at the waist to shoot Hope an amused look over his shoulder. “I was eighteen when we first met, you know.”

“Humans can continue to grow until their twenties. You’ve also been in a healthier environment since then. Plus, there’s your gene factor to consider.”

Noel’s face assumed his ‘oh that’s interesting (but pretty useless so I’ll forget it)’ expression. “I don’t feel taller.”

Was Hope imagining it? No, he was sure. “Come here.”

Noel obediently complied to stand in front of Hope, eyes still amused. “So?”

Was Hope’s line of sight always aimed at Noel’s chin? He frowned. Those early days, he was positive it had been at Noel’s mouth (he could remember being distracted by it).

“Hold still.” And Hope kissed him.

Yes, Noel had definitely gotten taller.

“Those are some really evil eyes you’re shooting me right now, Hope…”

“You grew.” It came out as an accusation.

“And you’re upset by this.”

“I’m not upset,” Hope huffed and Noel laughed, pulling Hope into a tight hug.

“It’s just your imagination. I really don’t feel any different.”

Hope sulked against Noel’s chest, allowing the other man’s warmth to placate him.

“Huh, that’s strange,” Noel said after a moment, and Hope tensed at the too-innocent lilt in Noel’s rich voice. “Now that you mention it, have you always fit so perfectly under my chin like this? … did you shrink?”

 


	7. face to face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew a picture in response to this: http://meimikana.tumblr.com/post/78288462974/dog-collar
> 
> You can view the picture here (NSFW-ish): http://ruakichan.tumblr.com/post/78632933693/a-sharp-pull-of-the-leash-drew-him-up-short-a
> 
> The picture's "caption" blossomed into this short ficbit.
> 
> Content warning for collar kink. It's all very consensual though. Non-explicit foreplay.

A sharp pull of the leash drew him up short, a breath away from parted pink lips, and a tiny discontented sound escaped him.

He  _ached_. It wasn’t a question of release, of fucking or being fucked; it was that he couldn’t have what he  _wanted_ , lounging right in front of him. He was never good in matters of self-control, not with something like this, not with hazed green eyes challenging him.

Those green eyes had watched him, aloof but daring, as gloved hands had gently stripped him bare, his only adornment a dark collar for their play. He had been amused at first, indulging in this little twist to their sex life, and it had been cute until he realized he was being denied what he  _wanted_.

And those green eyes had watched him, utterly in control, even as he had lost it, tearing away at the barriers of clothing which blocked his need to touch, to taste, to meld with pale skin. He had fed like he was starving once more, leaving marks as he indulged in his wants, but it wasn’t enough and the need to bruise those pink lips had overwhelmed him.

But the jerk to the band about his neck had stopped him short of his goal.

He stared pleadingly into a delicate face, and those green eyes were almost inhuman in their restraint. Only the soft quickness of breath and the hard arousal against him indicated that maybe this discipline was not without weakness.

"Please," he whispered hoarsely, the first words since their play had reached this level. Begging. "Hope, I-I  _want_ —”

A quiver thrilled through the slim body beneath him and pale lashes fluttered, shuttering away the staring green.

It was enough, and Noel pulled himself up to finally satiate his heart’s desire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry. :(
> 
> EDIT: So Meimi went ahead and finished up the actual porn! Check it out in its delectable glory here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1517534/chapters/3208034


	8. out of your league

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My co-worker told me of a similar situation so I wanted to try it out with the two boys.

Hope squinted at the small type on the sheet of paper. Schools these days were getting rather demanding in their needs. "Pens, composition book, felt tip markers, gum eraser, calculator, pencil case, report covers, three-ring binder, et cetera, et cetera…"

His daughter rested her chin atop the shopping trolley's handle, pushing it back and forth impatiently. Leonora was always so energetic; Hope couldn't remember ever being this restless at her age. ( _Most likely inherited it from her mother_.) "I know what I need, Dad. Let's gooooo."

"Yes, yes…" Suppressing a smile, he followed her through the store as she careened through aisles. She was excited about school; bright and gifted, she was currently two grades ahead of the other peers in her age group. Hope had been initially worried how it would affect her (it had certainly affected  _him,_ at her age), but her outgoing, almost blunt, personality reamed away any doubts.

They stopped at an aisle which had a number of items they needed, and Hope dutifully checked off the list as Leonora chucked them into their cart.

"Markers, markers," she muttered to herself as she scanned the rows of office supplies.

As she searched, a display of children's schoolbags next to them caught Hope's attention. Leonora's current one was getting a bit worn, he had noticed. Since they were here, he may as well get her a new one for the new school year. (She was Daddy's little princess, after all. He spared no expense on her and was sometimes a little too indulgent toward her whims, much to his ex's irritation. It may have been partially due to lingering guilt over the divorce. It had ended amiably enough—they had been too young and naive—but Hope always wondered if he didn't work hard enough to save the marriage. Years had passed yet he still wondered that every time Leonora was dropped off into his care every other weekend.)

Pawing through the backpacks, Hope found a practical affair decked out in green and white chevron. He carefully inspected the workmanship; Leonora's gifted classes tended to be rather heavy in the textbook department. The last thing he wanted was the bag falling apart as she was heading to her next class.

"Honey, what do you think?" Hope asked, half turning to show Leonora his find.

But his daughter wasn't the one there. Horrified, Hope dragged his gaze up along long legs encased in ripped jeans to the face of a very surprised young man.

The surprise quickly melted into an easy grin, violet eyes curving with gentle amusement. "I dunno,  _babe_ , it looks a little small for you. But it does bring out your eyes."

"Dad," Hope heard Leonora call from a little further down the aisle on his opposite side. "I found the markers!"

( _Shit_.) Hope knew his entire face—hell, his entire body—was flushed with embarrassment. He wanted to look away, but like a deer in headlights, he kept staring at the young man. "M-my apologies, I thought my daughter was there—"

The young man chuckled, broad shoulders rolling in a dismissive shrug. "It's all right. It's not often that I get hit on by such a cute guy."

Hope was pretty sure his cheeks just invented a new shade of red. ( _A regular Casanova, this kid…_ ) He didn't believe one iota of those flirtatious words. The young man was extremely handsome. ( _A face like that belongs in the movies. Cocky brat._ )

"Daaaad," Leonora tugged on his sleeve, and he glanced down at her, startled out of his impolite gawking.

"I found the markers," she repeated and then her gaze slid past her flustered dad to the young man smiling ( _cheekily_!) at them both.

A little frown creased her mouth as she glanced back at her father, identical to the one worn by Hope when he disapproved of something.

Warning klaxons suddenly blared in Hope's head. His daughter had next-to-no filters between brain and mouth (his ex-wife blamed that solely on him) and it looked like she was about to fire off something that was going to embarrass him further.

"Dad, he's way out of your lea—"

Hope shoved the backpack into Leonora's arms, cutting her off, and firmly turned her around, pushing her forward. Bobbing his head in apology to the young man ( _what the hell the kid's smirking!_ ), Hope mumbled an incoherent pardon as he ushered his daughter over to the next aisle and away from the young man's long-lashed, smoldering gaze and full-lipped smile.

Leonora stared at him with that same frown. "Dad, we left our cart."

The rickety creaks of a rolling trolley followed her statement, and to Hope's horror, the end of it peeked around the corner. He could almost hear that velvet chuckle again, but luckily, none came. (He was a little disappointed that the young man didn't come either.)

"You know, Dad," Leonora huffed, tugging the cart toward them. "if you're going to pick up someone, you should find one in your league."

"I wasn't—I… what?" Having an overly clever daughter was a curse. (He wasn't sure who to blame for that. Both Elida and himself had excelled in school.)

"That guy was way too pretty and cool," she nodded sagely. "You need to aim lower if you ever want to get married again. I mean, you're such an old geezer, Dad, and totally uncool."

Hope could feel a headache balling behind his eyes. "... Nora, go fetch your markers," he said in his best I Am Your Father voice, "and not a word to your mother about this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope's mental comment that this kid was a "regular Casanova" forced me to draw a picture that proved otherwise. You can find it here, at the end of the story: http://ruakichan.tumblr.com/post/78727135787/heres-a-small-thing
> 
> sorry just hope i'm pretty sure noel's not even remotely a casanova you were just blindsided that's all


	9. Momentary Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a cute meme that I wanted to try out: basically I asked my tumblr followers to give me a canon/AU setting (though most people submitted prompts lol) and I'd write a three sentence fic.
> 
> Abuse of comma splices, semi-colons, colons, parentheses, and run-ons ahoy!

**Noehopu IMMEDIATELY after Paradox Ending 5**

"Hm, they're gone," Noel astutely observed, before turning to Hope with a certain familiar expression, "and it looks like I'm not leaving anytime soon."

"I do have a rather pressing situation to take care of back inside and you're not leaving anytime soon," Hope fired back pointedly, but when Noel only grinned at him, the Director realized that his retort lacked conviction.

In fact, Hope didn't even protest when Noel dragged him off to the nearest dark corner for the first real private time they had in too long; he had plenty of interns for times like these.

* * *

 

**'dissidia' with either cloud or squall**

"You two could be related, you know," Noel said slowly, rubbing his chin as he looked between the two men.

Hope and Cloud exchanged confused looks, but it was Hope that dared to ask Noel to further clarify (curse his morbid curiosity!).

Grinning like a puppy with a bone, Noel fluffed up his own hair, picking at the locks to make them stand up in a chocobo crest.

* * *

 

**Noel asking bestie Serah how to seduce Hope**

"So, Serah," Noel began, leaning over the table inside the little cafe, "in your … uh, culture-time-thingy, how does someone go about getting laid with their person of choice—you know, courtship rules and stuff."

Across from him, Serah raised a brow at the question and Alyssa snorted; both had a pretty good idea who had caught Noel's eye since he wasn't exactly subtle about it.

"Well, Noel, I think you just blasted through the 'courtship,'" Serah answered after a moment, as Hope studiously tried to focus on lunch.

* * *

 

**NoeHopu + meeting the parents (canon)**

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, little guy!" Noel said, sweeping up the chubby toddler waddling past him before the kid wandered into a busy street.

The harried parents rushed up a moment after; with body-sagging relief, the (familiar?) mother reclaimed her child (with some difficulty, as the toddler had taken a possessive liking to Noel's shiny necklace) and scolded the laughing boy as best she could through unshed tears.

Noel blinked at the name the mother called her son, but when she turned to thank the time-traveller for his help, he just ruffled the child's cowlick and said, "I wouldn't worry too much; I'm sure he'll grow up to be someone you'll be incredibly proud of."

* * *

 

**Noel reminding Hope to eat**

Flick, pause, flick, pause, flick, flick, flick, pause, flick, pause, flick, flick; his office lights flashed on and off in an arrhythmic strobe, and so it had been for the last ten minutes.

Flick, flick, pause, flickflickflick, pauseflick, flick, flick, pause, flick; Hope could feel the irritation balling at the back of his skull, a slowly building pressure as he struggled to concentrate on the important reports arrayed across several tablets spread about him.

Pause, pause, pause (did he give up?), flickflickflickflickflickflickflickflick: "Yes, all right, fine, I'll eat something," Hope conceded in exasperation and Noel smirked.

* * *

 

**Noel sewing a rip in his pants in front of Hope (make it risque)**

"Ah, so that's how you do it?" Hope murmured into Noel's ear, watching strong hands work needle and thread through dark blue fabric.

"Yeah, just spread the fabric open where the hole is, and then you just push it in firmly and pull it out—ah, dammit!"

"Hmm," Hope hummed as Noel's full mouth sulked at him from around an injured finger.

* * *

 

**fang teasing noehopu**

"Ah, looks like he got ya," Fang drawled with a knowing look, and Hope self-consciously slapped a hand to his neck, smothering the red bruise that had been just a bit too high to be hidden by his collar.

"He's just a kid," she advised playfully as pink dusted across pale cheeks, "so you gotta lay down the law with that puppy and smack him a few times if he gets too rough—" but Fang cut herself off when Noel sauntered in; she noted, with a finely arched brow, the red streaks climbing his arms and disappearing up into his sleeves.

"Rough night, eh?" she smirked at the young hunter and Hope coughed loudly.

* * *

 

**Noel being horny~ but Lighting catches them~ ?**

Noel was missing; this in itself was not unusual, but the lack of Hope certainly was, and Lightning stifled a long-suffering sigh, guessing what had happened.

Her guess was confirmed when she found the two barely contained within a broom closet, the door partially ajar as Noel's tall frame smothered Hope's lithe one inside, hands frantically working at clothes to finish business before anyone noticed the two men were missing.

(Too late), Lightning thought with a frown, but before she could interrupt their amorous adventure with sharp words, she heard a "Not now, Light" and the door was shut firmly in her face; a keen reminder that Hope wasn't quite the fourteen-year-old boy she remembered.

* * *

 

**hope/noel in which noel is delirious**

Fevered, I wandered long in the shadowlight without direction, passing the ghosts of faces I could almost recognize if I dared call their name with my broken tongue, if the people I had known in my short life remained empty-eyed as their wide mouths curved into fanged smiles, if they had been horrifying and cruel (they all had been horrifying and cruel), yet I sought to touch them anyway, to find something solid and present, but they laughed like wild dogs as my fingers passed through their shade, nothing more than powerless ghosts I carried as a comfort in my mind.

No, no, no, I shouted; better to believe everyone I had known in my short life were dead until they were in front of me, until I could touch them, until I could feel the warmth of the heart that beat blood through their body, until I could feel the whisper of the air they breathed upon my cheek, better to surround myself with death, my intimate lover, with these shadows and their bright, bright grins mocking my inadequacy, these shadows showing the scars of how they died, how they would die, blaming me because I was always the survivor, and even now I knew I would survive, but who would die so I could live?

"Noel," the soft voice cut through the shadows and they flitted away, squealing in distress, and beyond their panicked silhouettes I saw faded green eyes lined with worry, fringed by disheveled pale hair; with trembling, moist fingers, I touched the delusion to find it warm and  _real_.

* * *

 

**coffee shop AU**

Hope was a rather handsome man, so he was used to picking up on the signals of flirtation and admiration from the people he interacted with.

But somehow he failed to notice the signal from the cute barista who made his coffee every morning; he figured the heart drawn in the latte was just because it was an easy thing to do and that the bright, winsome smile was just because Hope was normally a generous tipper (and he tipped this young man with the enchanting, playful eyes quite generously, because he did make a pretty mean brew and such talent should be rewarded).

Hope finally clued in one day when he received his morning dose of his favorite drug of choice: a phone number carefully inscribed in the milk.

* * *

 

**Hope or Noel wind up getting hitched without realizing it until later. Fantasy AU**

"We've beaten the dragon, overthrown the evil warlock, stopped a war, freed the kingdom from its enchantment, restored the throne to its rightful heir, and pretty much saved the world for another year," Noel said to the witch, before he waggled his end of the shackle with a long-suffering sigh, "but we still haven't been able to get these off."

The other end of the chain was clamped around the wrist of the (ridiculously hot if a bit too clever for his own good) prince Noel had spent the better part of his sudden, unwanted promotion to "Hero" status protecting (he had quite liked his quiet life as a hunter, thank you very much); Hope sighed in equal measure: "I really miss sleeping in a bed where I don't have to fight for the covers, or taking a bath without being ogled (I don't 'ogle' you, Noel protested a little too defensively), or just enjoy a little quiet time…"

Serah looked between the two and their shackle binding them together; the confusion was evident in her eyes as she asked, "Um, why did you get married then?"

* * *

 

**Zombie AU**

Noel ran through the streets of pandemonium, screams and gunshots loud in his ears—echoing the ghost of that timeline Serah and he had erased when the Proto fal'Cie had taken over the city—but he ignored them, stopping only to cut down the Cie'th-like, mindless humans (not really human anymore, he grimply laughed to himself) unfortunate enough to get between him and his goal.

As he rushed through the central offices of Academia, he once more berated himself for leaving the city for a week (but then, who had expected this sudden descent into chaos?) and prayed to Etro for a miracle as he passed by empty cubicles and upturned desks, before bursting into Hope's dark office (papers and books scattered over the floor, heavy shades drawn tight against the cacophony outside) and there, hunched over the desk and a laptop, was one of the few people remaining who Noel could call his own, dark smudges like bruises under empty staring eyes, open-mouthed face pale and hair disheveled.

(No, no, no, not you, Hope, this can't be true, you can't have—) and Noel stumbled forward, fingers tightening over the hilts of his dripping blades, unsure of how to proceed, unsure if he could kill what had been someone so precious, before the creature at the desk dropped the fiercest, most familiar scowl on him and said, "Noel, this report is due within the hour, could you come back later?"

* * *

 

**Noel teasing about Hope's boomerang before Hope barely even has a chance of introducing himself**

"Hope Esthei—"

"Wait a minute," Noel interrupted, stabbing a finger in the stranger's direction, "why do you get an endgame weapon—when we're barely a quarter through this journey—that one-shots a monster Serah and I had to do twice just to five-star—I mean, aren't we the protagonists of this story so why aren't we receiving the OP gear which OHKOs our way to the end of the game; also why didn't you help us earlier or were you just waiting to make a dramatic entrance even though the Historia Crux's preview of this time period already spoiled your appearance?"

"You must be Noel," Hope replied with a flat look, " and the game manual wasn't jesting about your habit of saying whatever's on your mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all the people who submitted something and participated. =w= None of these wouldn't exist without you first planting the seed.


	10. Thoughts

A dry erase board hung upon their fridge door. Hope couldn't remember when he had gotten it or how; it seemed a rather dated item in a period of texts, marquees, and electronic alerts through more convenient media.

He had debated getting rid of it at some point, but Noel had taken a liking to it (scribbling doodles on it while dinner cooked) so there it remained on their fridge door, a white slate in a cheap plastic frame, with a little shelf housing some markers in various colors and a felt eraser. Just a blank space in Hope's vision, easily overlooked and ignored during his infrequent forays into the kitchen.

He wasn't sure when the first message may have actually appeared, but one morning he definitely noticed that it was no longer blank, no longer white.

[ _I love you because of your smile._ ]

The words were printed carefully, the mark of a beginner with each stroke written just  _so_ , a precision often abandoned by the proficient. Hope blinked at the sentence, once, twice, and then something warm settled into his belly and it wasn't the coffee he was drinking.

Both Noel and he had been busy the last few weeks. They rarely saw each other, sharing only a fleeting kiss as they passed by; Hope returning from work as Noel went to start his own. And in an era of technology, where a person was only a few button presses away, they still remained distant. Noel was averse to technology; or perhaps, more accurately, technology was averse to him. Hope found that devices left too long in Noel's possession often ended up lost or broken (typically the latter). Hope wasn't sure if Noel's insatiable curiosity led him to take the machines apart to see what was inside (in another era, in another circumstance, Hope wondered if Noel would've made an excellent scientist) or if Noel, fed up with figuring out how to properly work something, would handle the problem in the most direct way possible.

So without those little electronic gadgets to pass on those messages, this was what Noel had resorted to.

But the more Hope stared at the message, the more embarrassed he became. There was no one around to witness these adoring words; no one would ever witness them for they were for Hope's eyes alone. But the words were there, clear and real, and he could almost hear Noel saying it in his ear, with a little laugh (to be followed by more  _physical_ affection), and it was just  _embarrassing_ even if no one was around to deride him about it.

Hope picked up the eraser, determined to swipe the words away.

But his phone vibrated with an incoming text. He quickly checked it, wondering if Noel somehow knew what he had discovered, but it was only Vanille. He answered her quickly, the message typed with the too-perfect characters from an electronic font.

When he was done, he glanced up at Noel's handwritten message, painstakingly scribed, yet could be so easily erased. The warm feeling crawled into his stomach again.

Impulsively, Hope took a picture of the slate before wiping it clean.

 

* * *

 

[ _I love you because you kick me in your sleep._ ]

So the messages continued.

Each day was a new reason why Noel loved Hope. Sometimes it was incredibly sappy, be it the color of Hope's eyes, the sounds he made during sex (Hope had very quickly erased that message, face aflame), how wonderful and kind and amazing he was—all the typical lines people fed their significant others.

And then sometimes it'd be like today's somewhat baffling reason. At first Hope couldn't understand why his poor bed manners (and he was aware that he wasn't the most considerate of sleepers: he had a tendency to hog the bed or the covers, and he often slept restlessly) would endear anyone.

But as the odd reasons continued to be sprinkled in with the sappy ones, Hope began to see a pattern. These were things only Noel could know, that only he could partake in, pieces of Hope that Hope revealed without even realizing it.

[ _I love you because you almost burned down our home._ ]  
[ _I love you because of your kisses._ ]  
[ _I love you because your hands fit right in mine._ ]  
[ _I love you because you gave me your cold._ ]

And so the messages continued. And so Hope continued to store pictures in his phone even as he erased the words off the board.

During their brief moments of contact, Noel never said a thing about the little messages he left. Not even a knowing indication in his eyes or smile; strange for a man whose thoughts played across his face as legible as the ones he wrote on that board. But Noel said nothing or did nothing and each day when Hope would go into the kitchen after Noel left, there'd be another note there, another one of Noel's thoughts in fragile, handwritten text.

At night, by himself in bed, Hope would go through the album on his phone dedicated to just those messages. There were quite a few now. He'd slide past each image slowly, soaking up the words, hearing Noel say them in his rich voice, and an ache would build up in his heart.

All these things, these moments, these memories and gestures… Hope couldn't say he could recall with vivid clarity such instances involving Noel. Did Noel kick him while sleeping in turn? Did Noel's hands fit well into his own as well?

Hope was sure he knew. But trying to purposely recall these small single things… he couldn't.

What he could recall, could conjure vividly, was  _Noel_ : all of him, from the top of his mussed hair straight down to his callused feet and the way all of him worked together to form the Noel that would rub the back of his neck when he was embarrassed, the Noel who puffed up when he was irritated, the Noel who would go still as a stone when he was pondering something difficult, the Noel who laughed with his entire body, the Noel who loved with his entire being.

Ah, was that it then? Was that why he couldn't conjure small details, pieces and parts, because of that? Hope gave himself up in doses, a little here, a little there; it was a defense, a wall he never really could let go of, too cognitive, too hurt by the reality that eventually everything leaves. Everything fades. Everything dies.

But Noel was the opposite. He understood the reality as Hope did, but perhaps he understood it  _better_. Indeed, everything leaves, everything fades, everything dies; time was too short so Noel gave everything now, and that's why Hope couldn't conjure the small details, because he had the full picture, and why, during those days when he wanted to write something back on that board, to write some 'I love you because...' message for Noel to come home to, he couldn't figure out a single thing to scribe.

The next morning, Hope stood before the white board. Noel would be home soon and Hope would be off to work.

It had been a long time since he had handwritten anything. Hope was so inured to the ease of technology that he had ceased writing anything by hand. Homework had been done on the computer, notes to family or friends through text, and lab reports and thesis in 12 point serif typeface.

Writing felt unfamiliar and his handwriting was more atrocious than he remembered, but he was careful, paying attention to the characters so that Noel could read Hope's thoughts without doubt.

When Noel came home, Hope kissed him in welcome and good-bye before heading out to start his day.

When Hope came home that night, Noel kissed him in welcome and good-bye, and Hope headed to the kitchen.

His message was still there, but below it was its twin: the same words, but in Noel's too-careful handwriting.

[ _Because I love you._ ]


	11. No pain, no gain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't feeling well, so I just scribbled a picture of Hope glaring at a beaten up but grinning Noel. The picture seemed out of place without context, so I wrote this quick thing to accompany the illustration.

"I'd inquire as to what you were thinking, but obviously you weren't." Hope paused, glancing over Noel again and it was hard to keep his composure. "No, actually, I  _do_ want to know. What  _possessed_ you to go hunting for adamantoise alone?" Normally, Noel had more sense than this. Sure, he may have a slight over-estimation of his own abilities, but he wasn't Snow-levels of reckless.

"I wasn't alone, Hope," came the glib answer. "Fang and Vanille were there."

Hope stifled a long-suffering sigh. Of course. That explained quite a bit. He would have to have a  _chat_ with the two women about encouraging their newest, bestest buddy to join them on their little escapades. Noel was like a pack animal: his common sense would go down as the number of people involved went up.

With a crooked grin (and a wince as muscles pulled at the myriad of injuries mottling his face), Noel rubbed a bandaged finger under his nose. "Didn't get to bag one though; we were pretty close but then this behemoth charged right in and—"

Hope held up a hand. He didn't need to know the details. He could guess exactly what had happened, from the moment when Noel had returned home battered, bruised, crudely bandaged, but grinning like a kid on his birthday.

"I'm mad at you."

"Of course you are," Noel agreed in a placating tone, the tone he took when he felt Hope was being unreasonable about whatever latest foolish thing Noel was doing. "I wasn't even gonna return tonight cause I knew you'd be pissed."

It took a lot of willpower for Hope not smack that cocky look straight off the younger man's face. (Light had taught him how to properly knock someone on their ass and he had a feeling someday he'd demonstrate all that he had learned on Noel.)

"... so why did you?" and Hope knew he would regret asking, because sometimes Noel, level-headed as he usually was, had the  _oddest_ sense of logic. (And that was putting it politely.)

"Well, you're  _way_ better at patching up wounds than Fang or Vanille, sooooo…"

Yes, Hope regretted asking. With a final stare that would've cowed anyone else (Noel had gotten very good at ignoring that look and ignoring it now he was, smiling in that charming way of his, when he knew he had won), Hope turned away and disappeared back into his home office, the door hissing shut in an almost irritated fashion.

"So I guess this means you won't be kissing my aches away?" Noel called.


	12. between 1 and 0 (deux)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a continuation of the short fic 'between 1 and 0.'

Hope awoke with a sharp gasp, the unease from his dream already fading into an unrecognizable mist through which the metallic face of fear lay shrouded.

He stared into the night, concentrating on breathing deep and listening to his heartbeat slowly quiet from a drum roll into a measured cadence. His limbs were dead weights on the downy mattress, heavy with tension. It felt like he hadn't rested at all.

Turning his head, he squinted at the LCD clock by his bedside. Only a few hours had passed since he had laid down (against his will, but Noel refused to listen). With a shuddering sigh, he pressed his palms to his eyes. He could feel exhaustion burning behind his eyelids, but he knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Not now. Anxiety still lurked at the back of his head, waiting for him to lower his guard.

Sighing again in defeat, he sat up, rubbing at the tension in his neck as he readied himself to field Noel's scoldings. But the cot by his bed was empty, the blankets still neatly folded. Hope frowned. Strange. Where was Noel? His appointed bodyguard was never far from his side.

With a crack of limbs, Hope got up and padded to the bedroom's doorway to glance out as he turned on the lights. The rest of the penthouse was dark. Surely Noel wouldn't have left the flat? (Not that Hope minded; the whole assassination deal was objectively the least of his problems, but Noel took his duties quite seriously.)

Surely Noel wouldn't have  _left_?

"Noel?" Hope called out tentatively into the darkness.

"In here," came a muffled reply and Hope traced it to the master bathroom, the metal door firmly shut. "It's open."

Despite himself, relief sagged through Hope's heavy limbs. Noel hadn't  _left_.

He approached the bathroom door, not too keen about the 'it's open' prospect. Last time it had been 'open,' Hope had barged right in on an unabashedly naked Noel—though, to Hope's credit, he had been worried about Noel when the young man had not responded to his queries.

Breathing deep, he warily slid the door open, ready to slam it shut again if Noel was doing something untoward.

Noel was standing before the vanity, clad only in some loose bottoms Hope had provided for him as part of his sleepwear, hair knotted up in a dozen little bobs, and a pair of scissors in one hand. Shredded bits of hair littered the sink's countertop.

Hope hadn't seen the scars on Noel's back the night before; these weren't quite as hypertrophic as the set on Noel's chest. Dragging his eyes from them, Hope met the other's gaze in the mirror. "What are you doing?"

Noel frowned, pointing the scissors at Hope's reflection. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? Why aren't you asleep?"

"Can't," Hope said curtly, determined to shut down that line of conversation before Noel could nag him to go back to bed. He'd physically fight Noel if he had to. "So what are you doing?"

For a moment, it seemed like Noel was going to pursue the whole sleeping issue, but his gaze travelled back to his own reflection instead, lifting the scissors to clumsily snip at a lock of hair, leaving behind jagged edges. "Cutting my hair. It really needs it."

Hope watched Noel fumble around, the hunter poking a tongue into his cheek as he clipped at air. "If you'll just wait until morning, we can visit a barber before going into the office."

"Nah, I don't think I could trust a complete stranger to wield a sharp object in the vicinity of my vitals. Especially since tomorrow's the big day."

Hope raised a brow, feeling that was rather paranoid of Noel, though there was a certain, twisted logic behind it. "So you've cut your own hair before?"

"Uh…" Noel turned his head to flash Hope a flustered look. "Actually, my friend—she used to do it for me… so this is my first time."

"Well, that explains a lot," and, feeling the urge to be helpful, Hope smiled faintly, drawing a faintly curious look from Noel in return. "Perhaps I can assist you."

"Sure. You've done this before?"

Astonished by Noel's quick agreement, Hope gathered a spare towel and comb. "No, but at least I can see your entire head. It can't be that difficult."

With that, Hope had Noel seated on a chair in the den, the towel about his shoulders. "Just a trim, right?" Hope asked, starting to have second thoughts as he undid all the uneven ties. Just what possessed him to offer?

"Yeah. Please."

Hope was surprised by how fine Noel's hair was. It certainly didn't look coarse despite its fullness, but there was a drape to it like cascading water. Certainly different from his own scruffy hair, which often had a mind of its own. The color too, was lustrous; brown was an unflattering description for layers which revealed depths of deep gold and rich mahogany. He dipped his fingers into the dark tresses curiously, running them through to the ends, enjoying the sensation of warm silk on his skin.

"Hope?"

He jumped, startled; he hadn't meant to play with Noel's hair. He was grateful Noel couldn't see the mortified look staining his face. "My apologies, I was just wondering where to start."

"You're making me nervous, you know," Noel said, though a teasing lilt betrayed him.

"I'm already nervous."

Noel tilted his head slightly to shoot an easy grin at Hope. "Don't worry, hair grows back."

"That's not very reassuring," Hope replied, but he picked up the comb off the nearby table anyway.

Running it gently through Noel's hair, Hope gathered the strands in his hands, fingers brushing the sensitive skin at the nape of the young man's neck. A soft little noise escaped Noel, his back stiffening into a straight line.

Hope glanced around at him curiously. "I haven't even started cutting yet."

"Your hands are cold," Noel complained.

"Are they?" Hope pressed a palm to Noel's cheek, and the hunter flinched away with an offended sound. Hope couldn't help but smile innocently at the dirty look Noel shot him; it was, after all, fair payback for all the times Noel had won with his nagging. (Hope was a sore loser.)

Noel settled back against the chair with what Hope could've sworn was a sulk. It sometimes surprised Hope how freely Noel often shared his emotions—and how they usually reminded Hope just how young Noel really was. It was easy to forget it at times.

Shaking his head, Hope returned his attention to the task at hand, meticulously separating layers of hair and tying them up into neat rows with rubber bands. He really didn't know what he was doing, merely working off vague memories of watching his mother trim his father's hair (whose length had never reached that of Noel's). But those days were so long ago and Hope had trouble recalling the motions of his mother's arms or the way she would use the scissors. He could only remember when it was his turn under the shears, the sensation of the comb against his scalp and the soft snick of each cut, accompanied by sweet humming as the sun shone lazily into their patio.

He had gone for haircuts since, but there was something impersonal about a trim at a barber's, never matching the solace he felt under his mother's gentle ministrations.

So without knowing what to do, Hope was careful, cautiously judging his actions before snipping a lock with a surgeon's delicacy. He didn't want to do this incorrectly, didn't want to ruin Noel's hair even if it would grow back. Noel was still and silent as Hope worked his way around to the front, shoulders a relaxed curve under the towel. Noel face was serene, eyes closed with his long lashes barely resting on his cheeks, lips slightly parted to release even breaths.

Hope paused, staring, and for a moment, a nameless emotion rose up in his chest, suffocating him. Before he could place it, it was gone, leaving him with stinging eyes. He quickly returned to work, afraid to examine the reaction (and knowing it was because he had never made anyone feel content, at peace, before).

When Hope was finished, he ran a comb through Noel's hair a final time to remove any remaining stray strands before stepping back to review his handiwork.

"Done?" Noel asked after a moment, cracking open his eyes.

"As done as I can make it," Hope said, relief evident in his voice. The result wasn't a disaster and Noel looked a little less like some shaggy, stray dog Hope had brought home. He carefully gathered the towel off Noel's shoulders, mindful of the clippings caught in its fibers. Folding it up, he set it aside. "Need a mirror?"

"Nah, I trust you didn't leave me with any bald spots."

Hope brushed off loose hairs from Noel's neck and cheeks and the hunter glared at him as he made a visible effort not to flinch from the chill in Hope's skin.

Hope just deflected the glare with a smile. "Can't trust a stranger to do their paid job, but you trust me, hm?"

"Despite your  _evil_ ways," Noel groused, eyeing Hope's hands, "I don't think you'll suddenly decide to bury the scissors in my throat."

"Is that so?" Hope pretended to think about it. "In films and novels, it's always the person you least expect who turns out to be the murderer."

Noel grinned. "I don't think you have a bad bone in your body, Hope. I mean, have you even ever hurt anyone willfully, in hate?"

"Actually, I came close once," Hope said with a crooked smile. "And that's the furthest I'd ever want to go." His stomach churned thinking about it.

"Good," Noel said, jabbing a finger in Hope's direction. "Don't ever step over that line."

Hope nodded, though he knew reality did not always have such a clean demarcation. In the end, he may have not harmed Snow, but he still had to kill people. He had no choice. The others tried to keep him from participating in battles which involved human opponents, but sometimes… there just wasn't a choice.

That first time, that first corpse, Hope supposed he was grateful his magic had burned the body beyond recognition. It looked like nothing more than overcooked meat, the scent of char strong in his nostrils. (A barbeque gone awry, he had thought detachedly at the sight.) But the screams—those had been different. He ended up being sick after the battle, dry-heaving as Light rubbed his back in a rare moment of empathy. 'Remember that was a human being,' she had told him. 'Don't erase the fact that was someone who had a life outside this battle. And don't forget they believe we are the enemy that they must kill to protect their loved ones.'

At first Hope thought it was strange Light would tell him that. It made him less willing to fight, to harm, to kill. But he realized, later, that she didn't want him to find killing to be  _easy_ , to be  _natural_. She didn't want him to dehumanize his enemies because then it became simple to justify destroying them.'

(Maybe she had recognized the destructive path he had stepped upon when his mother had died.)

Noel held out his hand then, wiggling his fingers in invitation. "Hey, want me to give you a trim too? I have a few bad bones, but I  _am_ working as your bodyguard so no murderous intent here."

Hope shook his head a bit too strenuously; he was more concerned that Noel would murder his hair. "No, that's all right. I appreciate the offer."

"What?" Noel eyed him critically and Hope shifted self-consciously when the stare went on a beat too long. "You really could use one you know, to do something about this." Noel reached up and ruffled the stray hairs fluffing out from Hope's bangs. "It really ruins your image of a great, awe-inspiring leader."

Hope batted at Noel's hands. "I've had it since forever. Nothing works on it. Leave it alone."

Noel's eyes lit up with boyish glee, mussing up the cowlick with enthusiasm despite Hope's protests. "It is cute though. Makes you look like a little kid."

Hope's eyes narrowed at that, and he lunged forward to slap his palms onto Noel's cheeks in retaliation. Noel yelped, jerking away with an ungraceful flail. His chair dipped precariously backwards.

Alarmed, Hope grabbed Noel about the biceps and pulled him upright. "Careful!"

But Noel was laughing, tugging Hope's fingers off him and folding them in his own. "Damn, your hands are freakin' cold!"

Noel's rolling laughter was contagious and despite himself, Hope began chuckling too, even as he became hyper-aware of the warmth enveloping his hands, spreading up his arms to color his face. But he wasn't embarrassed; he felt at ease—happy, even, to be laughing carefree like this. He didn't even know he was still capable of it.

Eyes still laughing, Noel peered up at him with a ghost of a smug grin. "Feeling better now?"

"Pardon?" Hope blinked.

"You said you couldn't sleep and you looked even crappier than usual."

Hope made a face. "Thanks," he grumbled at the observation, though he did actually feel better. Whatever anxiety that had been dogging him seemed to be nothing more than a shadow now. His body seemed light. "And… thanks," Hope added with sincerity.

"At your service." Then Noel's smile faded. "You act pretty blasé, but I guess you really are worried about tomorrow."

Hope shrugged, hands twitching in a subconscious effort to escape Noel's grip. "I suppose so."

Noel's fingers tightened, stilling Hope's nervous tic. "Liar."

Hope shrugged again, staring down at their joined hands and wondering how long Noel planned on keeping it that way. "It's not at the forefront of my mind, if that's what you're insinuating."

"You mean your own safety isn't at the forefront of your mind, but everyone else's is. Why else would you give nearly half the staff off tomorrow as a 'holiday' since the Project is ahead of schedule and send the rest of 'em on pointless jobs?"

Well, it wasn't as if Hope was making any effort to hide it. Snow really didn't leave a lot of details, so Hope had no idea how his would-be killer—or killers—planned on carrying out the deed. It could be something simple like a sniper taking out Hope with a bullet to the brain or something more elaborate such as bombing the entire lab, wiping out Hope and the project with it.

He had spoken with the few upper level military personnel in the Academy aware of the upcoming assassination attempt, and they too agreed it would serve best to find an unobtrusive way to limit the staff around Hope. So he rushed the work with the limited time he had to contrive excuses to run with minimal staff on the appointed day.

"I don't want anyone getting hurt because of me," Hope explained a little defensively.

"That 'natural predisposition,' huh?" Noel arched a brow. "So should I expect to be handed some errand that would mysteriously take me from your side for the entire day?"

"I have been giving some thought on how to send you off," Hope admitted a little sheepishly.

Noel looked offended. "What the hell, Hope. Why am I even here? Don't trust me to do my job?"

"On the contrary," Hope said quietly, "I feel you might do it a little too well."

Noel's face became inscrutable at Hope's concern, that same expression he wore last night when confronted by Hope's concern then. Why couldn't Hope read him like he could so many others? Maybe Hope didn't understand people as well as he had arrogantly surmised; he had been completely blindsided by Alyssa's betrayal, after all. He thought he had known her and he had trusted his judgment and so had trusted her. (Look where that turned up… if it hadn't been for Snow, Hope's poor judgment might've gotten Serah and Noel killed… or worse...)

Yet he didn't know Noel at all—(and here they were, holding hands, after Hope had given Noel a haircut, like a family member or a lover)—but the very probable reality that Noel would get hurt at his expense was an incredible weight on his shoulders.

The silence dragged on, and Hope grew uncomfortable under Noel's unwavering stare. He cleared his throat, flapping his arms once in an awkward, half-hearted attempt to free himself. "You said it yourself, Noel," he ventured. "We watch each other's backs."

His words didn't seem to satisfy Noel; the young man frowned as he mulled it over, callused thumbs absently stroking over Hope's skin. Hope was not a tactile person; the memory of a person's warmth under his hands always became too much to bear once that person inevitably left him. He didn't know why he continued to seek physical contact with Noel—didn't know why he allowed Noel to maintain it.

Noel's thumbs stilled as he came to some mental conclusion. "I don't plan on dying and I definitely don't plan on letting you die."

"Then we're on the same page. I don't either—on both counts." Not just death—Hope would do his best not to see Noel hurt either. He felt Noel already had too many scars for his age; Hope would not allow another one bearing his name to be added to the count.

Noel snorted at that. "You're the one with the death sentence and I'm your bodyguard, but you want to protect  _me_." He shook his head with wry wonder. "I honestly don't get you."

"We're on the same page there as well," Hope said, and this time he was able to tug his hands free. Deprived of Noel's warmth, Hope could feel the omnipresent chill settling into his fingers. He flexed them, curling them into fists to try to preserve what heat was left.

Noel remained silent for a long moment, the inscrutable expression evolving into something more complex. "Do you really think your life is irrelevant?"

"Of course not. I'm the renowned Director Estheim, after all." It came out more bitterly than Hope intended.

"You're not worthless, Hope."

"I know that." He didn't like where this was going. He hurriedly busied himself with cleaning up, scooping everything into his arms and turning away. Anything to avoid Noel's eyes.

"I meant… You have people who care about you."

Hope knew that too. But where were they? They weren't here, they weren't  _present_ —and he clamped down on those thoughts quickly, unable to face the darkness in them. In him.

"Even here," Noel continued, and the apprehension Noel had instilled in him last night returned full force.

Noel was dangerous, Hope realized. More than any faceless assassin.

"Right," Hope said softly. "Even here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I JUST WANTED TO WRITE MORE SKINSHIP  
> i'm not being deep or anything i just wanted to have hope playing with noel's hair and teasing noel about his sensitivity to cold


	13. between 1 and 0 (epsilon)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3... whoops, how did that happen...?

 

The shower's warm spray was a welcome comfort, and Hope was reluctant to leave its embrace. Today, the future Snow had seen had been thwarted.

It was almost anti-climatic in a way. The upper echelons of Academia's military had worked around the clock to pinpoint the threat and once secured, they had effectively neutralized the situation as it had happened. Hope had not been informed of any of their movements prior (most likely to guard against any information leaks), so he was rather surprised at how quietly and quickly everything went down.

The death Hope should've experienced was nothing more than a byproduct of a bigger goal: sabotage of the New Cocoon Project. But the chemical explosives had been defused and their perpetrators apprehended; the competence displayed by the military was cold, almost diffident, as if this was nothing more than a training exercise, thus sending a rather intimidating message to any other potential attempts.  _All will be crushed without mercy, like insects._

_Politics_.

Hope personally despised the political game, but it was something he had to play in those early days of the Academy, especially after his father had retired. One had to dole out their trust in measures, separating friends from 'friends,' biting back one's distaste in order to move mutual goals forward. Hope hated that kind of dishonesty, but it was second nature to him now, almost a refuge to protect himself. It would naive to say that  _politics_ still didn't exist in the well-adjusted world of 400AF; humans always craved power.

He was a pawn in this particular move; the now publicly known threat to a beloved celebrity (and Hope had no illusions that was what he was and he would not deny he used it to gain further support for the New Cocoon Project) had been neutralized by a capable military. Favor would be highly in the hands of Academia, and her detractors would find it harder to rally to their cause.

Hope released a long breath, ducking his head under the water and letting it beat over his scalp and the back of his neck, soothing away the tension there. At least no one had gotten hurt in the sortie… And the military was in the process of rooting out the head of the beast. No doubt they already had everything under tight control.

His phone buzzed. He knew he'd be getting a call eventually. With a rueful sigh, Hope shut off the water and slid open the stall door, drying his hands from a towel on the nearby rack. His phone continued to rattle on the sink's countertop.

"Yes, yes," Hope muttered, quickly stepping out and snatching it up. Sure enough, a private line. "This is Estheim."

On the other end, the chief of security brayed at him. What he said, Hope wasn't sure, because at that moment, the door to the bathroom whirred open and Noel marched inside.

Startled, Hope stared at him dully, unable to comprehend why Noel was currently invading his personal space with such an irritated expression. The chief of security continued to bark even as Noel firmly removed the phone from Hope's slack fingers.

"Yeah, hello?" Noel said loudly into the phone, affecting a cavalier tone. "Sorry to interrupt, but  _Director Estheim_  is busy at the moment."

Hope blinked, quickly regaining his senses. "Noel!" he hissed. "What are you doing? Give me that!"

"Nope, I'm pretty sure nothing you have to say is important enough to bother him right now," Noel continued, shooting Hope a pointed look.

" _Noel_!" Hope reached out to snatch the phone away, but Noel just flicked him in the forehead.

"But, in about," and Noel pretended to examine a watch on his wrist, "six hours, it'll be sunrise, and I'm sure our  _esteemed_ ,  _overworked_ ,  _no-life_  Director will be in his office as usual. You can bring him a nice breakfast and tell him all that you need then."

"Noe—" A broad hand gently covered Hope's mouth.

"'Who is this?'" Noel repeated into the phone, dropping the arrogant tone. "The only person who cares about Hope in this era." And he hung up, looking rather pleased with himself.

Hope jerked Noel's hand away. "What is wrong with you? That could've been important!"

"Hope," Noel said breezily, inspecting the phone, "I know this might shock you, so brace yourself: the world  _will_ continue if you're not there to oversee it."

"I know, but that—"

Noel flicked him in the forehead again and Hope scowled, rubbing at the spot. The way Noel would disregard Hope's seniority could be rather trying at times. He wasn't some slack-jawed teenager in need of disciplining. "That can wait."

The phone buzzed once more, but just as Hope reached for it, Noel snapped open the back casing with an 'a-ha!' and removed the battery. Pocketing the power source, he set the phone down on the counter, meeting Hope's incredulous stare with a satisfied grin.

"Assassins won't need to get to you if you don't take care of yourself, Hope," Noel explained with exaggerated patience, like one would to a child. Jerking a towel off the rack, he draped it over Hope's wet shoulders, carefully wiping at the moisture on Hope's face and neck before drying his hair. A surprised squeak slipped out of Hope, his hands flapping uselessly in the air at what to do.

"Damn, you're awfully pale," Noel noted critically. "And thinner than I thought."

Something unflattering rumbled in Hope's throat, even as he became incredibly self-conscious of his own nakedness beneath Noel's gaze. He was sure Noel did things like this on purpose just to embarrass him.

But he was too flustered to remedy it, realizing that recognizing the situation would only make Noel tease him more. Better to just let it be the elephant in the room. Dropping his arms, he refused to say a word while Noel dried his hair, glaring.

"There." Noel slipped off the towel and very considerately wrapped it around Hope's waist with a cheeky grin.

Hope knew every inch of his skin was splashed with red. He kicked at the hunter's shin, but Noel just danced out of the way. "Get out," he growled and Noel laughed.

"Yes, sir," the brat saluted, before waving over his shoulder as he left Hope alone in the bathroom, door sliding shut behind him.

With a sigh, Hope finished toweling himself off, glancing at the silent phone on the counter. He briefly entertained thoughts of calling from a public phone in the lobby of the complex, but in the end, he had to grudgingly admit that Noel was probably right.

It was… well, a bit of a relief. He knew the office was probably frantic, only because they needed to coordinate with him for the press conferences tomorrow, making sure everything went smoothly. Since  _politics_.

But Noel was probably right. That could wait. It had been a stressful day. It had been a stressful several days. For a few hours, he'd like to just slip off into oblivion, without dreams or worries, and forget who he was. It was a selfish luxury, but maybe he'd be forgiven.

What a horrible influence, that Noel.

Hope dressed and finished prepping for bed, stepping out of the bathroom in a lighter mood than when he had stepped in.

Noel was draped on the bed, dressed for sleep, an arm flung over his eyes against the room's lighting. His bare chest rose and fell with an easy rhythm. Hope felt a flash of guilt. It had been an exhausting time for Noel too; it was easy to forget in the face of Noel's driven, tireless optimism. Hope suspected Noel probably resented being left behind by Serah; regardless, Hope's safety was foremost on his agenda. He was sometimes overbearing about it, but he was sincere, and Hope knew he could trust Noel to protect him. But Hope was grateful that Noel hadn't been injured. Even if the wound could've been healed, Hope didn't want Noel bearing any scars with his name on it.

He didn't know if Noel planned on sticking around—just because today's attempt had been foiled did not mean there would not be future ones—and deep down, he wished Noel would leave, taking that easy-going warmth Hope was drawn to with him.

Sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, Hope busied himself with setting the alarm clock. The previous two nights Noel had slept on a neighboring cot, and this was the first time Noel had almost aggressively claimed half of Hope's large bed. The cot probably wasn't too comfortable, and Hope decided it was only fair that Noel have the bed tonight, after all that hard work the last few days.

"What are you doing?" he heard Noel murmur as the bed shifted.

"The chief of security will likely be in my office at the crack of dawn, thanks to you," Hope said, unable to keep the smart tone from his voice.

An arm snaked out from behind him, snagging the clock and setting it firmly facedown on the table. "Good. That was the idea."

Hope sighed, letting the argument go. This was one he wasn't going to win. "You're incorrigible."

"I don't know what that means," Noel hummed, "so I'll take it as a compliment."

Hope huffed helplessly as Noel pulled him to lie down. "Noel, I'll sleep on the cot. There's not enough room for both of us."

"Huh?" Noel blinked at him then looked at the full-body's worth of space between them. "There's plenty."

"I'm a bed hog, or so everyone says," Hope explained a little sheepishly. "I still manage to take up even a full-sized bed. And I steal covers."

Noel smiled. "Aren't you considerate. It's okay. I just stick to one area myself. I don't need a lot of room."

Another argument that Hope could tell he wasn't going to win. "Very well. But don't blame me if you wake up black and blue from me poking you," Hope warned, dipping a hand to prod Noel in the side in demonstration.

An undignified squeak startled Hope as Noel's body reflexively curled against the touch, and he stilled, meeting Noel's wide eyes.

"Are you…" Hope began slowly, and a trapped expression blossomed on Noel's face as the hunter recognized the growing danger, "...ticklish?"

"No," Noel said quickly. Too quickly. "Your hand was just cold."

A slow grin—it could only really be described as evil—pulled at Hope's lips. His hand darted out to pinch Noel's side.

With a speed born of desperation, Noel caught him by the wrist before Hope could find his mark.

"You're ticklish," Hope almost crowed. This amused him more than it should. Finally, he had some leverage over his cocky bodyguard. Noel did seem to be rather tactile—that sensitivity to cold touches should've tipped Hope off.

"Am not," Noel protested hotly, before Hope pulled another squeak out of him with his free hand.

The two grappled, Noel choking between bursts of squawking laughter any time Hope managed to successfully tickle him. And really, Noel could've easily overpowered him, but when Hope collapsed atop him, shoulders shaking with his own chuckles, he realized Noel let him get away with abusing that fatal weakness.

(' _The only person who cares...'_ ) Hope's laughter subsided into a relaxed feeling, as he lay listening to Noel's rapid heartbeat.

"You can't tell Serah," Noel coughed, catching his breath.

"What will you offer to procure my silence?" Hope teased.

"Coffee every morning."

Hope snorted. "You already do that to make sure it's not poisoned."

" _Every_  morning."

Some part of Hope refused to acknowledge what Noel was trying to say, censoring it into white noise. Raising himself up on his elbows, he caught Noel's naked look, that full mouth pressed together in a vulnerable line. For once, Hope could read Noel perfectly.

"...you shouldn't make promises you can't keep," Hope told him gently, though he smiled as he said it. It wasn't a kind smile, but it was all he could offer at the moment. "Still, I won't inform Serah either way."

After a moment, Noel tucked his hands under his head, lifting his chin to stare at some point above him. "Thanks," he said.

Hope watched him, wishing Noel didn't frighten him so much. Moments ticked by before he spoke again. "However, if you don't want me to inform Snow…"

A blue eye peeked at him from under the shadow of Noel's arm, rounded with dread.

Hope held out a hand. "You can give me back my phone battery."

A beat as Noel's mouth flapped open in surprise. Then he threw back his head and chuckled in defeat. Removing his arm, he tapped Hope on the nose. The vulnerability was gone. "I'll give it to you in the morning—with your coffee. Deal?"

"Good."

"Did anyone ever tell you how evil you are?"

Hope flashed him a half-smile, rolling out of bed to hit the lights. "Only to my friends."

"I'm honored."

"You should be. It's a great privilege." When Hope returned to bed, he noticed Noel had scooted to the opposite end, claiming only a small strip of mattress as his own. Hope supposed Noel hadn't been jesting about needing only a small place to sleep in, but it made the cool empty space between them seem a lot wider.

"Not seeing the benefits yet," Noel replied flippantly.

Hope pulled the thin sheets up to his chest, folding his hands over them as he stared up at the ghost of the ceiling lights slowly dipping into darkness. Outside, Academia was distant, but in here, Noel's breathing was soft, matching his own.

The first night, that sound had been foreign, and Hope had trouble sleeping due to it, but now, just two days later, he had grown accustomed to that shift in the silence of his quarters. Noel was dangerous, because without even trying, he had inserted himself into Hope's confidence, the third in a line of partners that Hope had allowed himself to accept as a constant in the chaos of his life.

And it just frightened Hope, because out of all them, Noel was the most likely to  _leave_.

"Night, Hope," Noel said from the other side of the bed.

The cool empty space between them was wide, but Hope could almost feel Noel's heat drifting along the soft sheets toward his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted more skinshiiiiiiiip...


	14. between 1 and 0 (null)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skinship fic-arc now dissolves into smutty shenanigans.
> 
> Sort of smut.
> 
> Truthfully, very unsexy smut, sorry.

"Are you still fooling around with that?" Hope asked as he settled down at Noel's side. The hunter was propped up on some pillows upon Hope's bed, clutching Hope's phone tightly as he concentrated on the simple game Hope had shown him earlier that day.

"I know I can beat your score," Noel mused distractedly, forefinger tapping at the screen in earnest. The phone chimed a short musical quip in response as colors flashed.

Hope hummed skeptically, resting a chin on Noel's shoulder to watch him play. He was comfortable in sharing personal space with Noel now; in fact, he sought out that warmth like a parched man in need of water. Just touches here and there—brief moments of contact to affirm  _presence_. They even shared the same bed at night (the cot returned to storage); during those dreaming hours, Hope would unerringly travel the vast distance between them to wrap himself around Noel's curled form—a leech latching onto the vitality of a living being.

It was a strange form of affinity they shared in those kind of moments; Noel: naturally tactile, Hope: abnormally isolated. With any other person, it would've been awkward, uncomfortable—a comedic situation ripe for misunderstandings; with Noel, Hope craved those moments, sheltered himself in them. Somewhere along the way, among their (fleeting, happenstance, fragile) time together, Hope had accepted Noel as his new constant.

(He didn't know what Noel thought of him—but the hunter accepted Hope's groping gestures of validation all the same.)

Noel bit off a curse as he lost the game within sight of his goal; undeterred, he started up a new round, more determined than before. Hope stifled a yawn, wondering if his phone battery or Noel's resolve would die first. He drummed his fingers on Noel's chest, the hypertrophic scars dimensional under their tips; he rested a palm on them. Noel's shoulders jerked at the cold touch.

"Stop trying to distract me," Noel said, brows furrowing.

That hadn't been Hope's intention (but he couldn't resist a brief smirk at Noel's childish complaint); Noel's scars were just a source of fascination for Hope. They weren't necessarily unusual scars—the largest set bore the indelible mark of a mauling—but there were many in various shapes and sizes and age; far too many for Noel's less than two decades of existence. And though he bore so many echoes of battles on his body, they didn't leave a mark on his mind or his heart (or so it seemed)—a strength at which Hope marvelled because he felt he was the opposite: his physical scars were minimal, but he recognized he was one hell of a fuck up from all he had to endure. (Alyssa had told him that once. He tried to tell Light that once.)

He didn't know the stories behind Noel's scars; he had always been too afraid to ask, though he knew Noel would freely answer. Nonetheless, the scars made Hope protective, to prevent more from scribing their story on Noel's body. And that was part of the future he was working toward—a future where Noel's scars would just be tales of the misadventures of a carefree youth. Hope wanted to save everyone, friends and strangers alike, but here was someone  _present_ , a physical relic of the stakes Hope was against.

Absorbed, a finger traced with a butterfly's flutter an upraised white rope twisting its way down Noel's pectoral; this scar and its brothers were the remains of a wound which must have nearly killed Noel, slitting open sinew and exposing the vitals. Hope knew it well; it was the most visible, most vicious, of Noel's scars, and he hated the images it conjured up when he saw them. They were reminders of Noel's mortality and Hope sometimes wondered how close (how often) Noel had personally stood to that edge of death, looking down into the dark abyss.

This set of scars ended before the vulnerable expanse of belly where the entrails lay bound (which had most likely aided Noel's chances of survival). Muscles contracted under Hope's questing fingertips as he crossed hills of unmarked skin to meet another scar, ghostly with age. He knew this one as well; long, smooth, and thin, traveling parallel to the dark down shadowing Noel's abdomen. Hope followed it over a rise of bone and under the border of a waistband resting low on hips, where it disappeared into mystery.

"You should…," the strain in Noel's voice was an underlying wire, stretched taut, "probably stop." Still spellbound, Hope glanced up; Noel's eyes were fixated points, dark pupils nearly swallowing blue as he stared with unblinking intensity at the phone in his hands, though the phone was silent and his fingers still.

Hope finally realized what he hadn't noticed during his fascination in exploring the white lines contrailing over brown skin; it was, after all, a perfectly natural, a perfectly  _biological_ reaction to have, regardless of any personal inclination.

"I'm sorry," Hope said. His fingers did not move. He didn't even consider being embarrassed.

"It's not a big deal," came the reply, though Hope could feel Noel quivering with iron restraint under his touch. "Just you—"

"I want to see your scars," Hope interrupted quietly and Noel's eyes flicked to his, the midnight dark awakened by a bemused captivation. Hope swallowed, saliva sliding like sand in his dry throat. He didn't know how to explain himself. He hoped Noel wouldn't ask. "I want to see all of them."

Noel lowered the phone to his side, never dropping his gaze. "... okay." That expression, that  _damned_ expression, the one Hope still hadn't learned how to read even though Noel was so  _easy_ to read—the one he most wanted to understand—shuttered onto his face like a glass mask.

The scar had disappeared from sight but Hope pushed at soft cloth. He knew about the ropes on Noel's torso, the crosses on his arms, the stigmata on his hands, but he never had an opportunity to witness the lines which lay on his thighs and legs; Hope leaned forward as this new chapter slowly revealed itself to him, working material off long, pliant limbs. He rested a pale hand on honeyed muscle, short-trimmed fingernails lightly scraping against four punctures, imitating how another claw had buried itself in Noel's thigh long ago.

A feral grunt drew Hope's attention; Noel's back was very straight, torn between dipping forward or leaning back. His eyes bore into Hope, striped by lowered lashes and Hope met that gaze briefly to be burned by it, before flicking back to these unknown scars, mapping the course of Noel's life.

Here lay a gash, shiny and spiderwebbed, upon a knee. Cupping Noel's thigh, Hope propped the leg up, his hair and breath kissing the skin as he leaned in close to examine it; a membranous fold had healed atop the wound like a half-lidded eye.

Below it, in that junction between patella and tibial tuberosity, nestled its sister, hardly to be seen. Hope couldn't feel it try as he might, but the illusion of a break in the expanse of Noel's skin was there.

He ran a hand down a well-formed calf, seeking marks; his fingers were bright, almost sickly, against the nut brown flesh. A recent scab, one Noel hadn't bothered to heal with magic—too small for his attention, too small to hold his attention—was the lone occupant.

With a gentle ministration, as if it were a frail babe, Hope lowered Noel's leg to examine the other, body bent across Noel for a better angle. A pink jagged tear, stretched along the sinew of the netherside of Noel's thigh, terminating in a deep well near the knee; Hope prodded and pinched at this rare specimen—a recent scar, probably received during travels with Serah, healed with a careless application then forgotten—as he brushed against Noel's mounting erection.

Fingers grabbed, tugged, dug into the back of his nightshirt, startling Hope out of his reverie as Noel's forehead drooped onto his shoulder in a lazy, drowsy motion, his breath solid sips of air.

Hope froze, aware now of a new warmth suffusing through him, against him: from the hot flesh under his hands, from the hot breath permeating through his shirt. A perfectly biological reaction—'no big deal.' A consequence of his explorations, one Noel had agreed to, one Hope had… yes, he had agreed to it. Implicit from both their understandings; Hope couldn't feign that he was unaware of this result.

Yet while he was  _fond_ of Noel, he wasn't  _in love_  with him. Wasn't something like this supposed to be an intimacy shared with heart-rending passion? At least, according to the literature of the ages or the popular culture of the times or the great romances which so obsessed humankind since the discovery of imagination. There was nothing of that in his motive, and while there was no denying that Noel was an attractive young man—and perhaps in a different life a young man Hope would've daydreamed about (entwined under the stars after an exhausting tryst)—but in this time, in this life, where Hope was just a little bit (a lotta bit) fucked up, Noel was simply a  _constant_ and Hope simply wanted to  _know_ him, because he didn't have enough time to know Light, and he had thought he knew Alyssa but in reality knew nothing at all.

A tentative touch to the glistening purple-pink head, protruding aggressively from its sheath of honey skin, was enough to elicit a muffled liquid sound from Noel, vulnerable but wanton. It was an unfamiliar mix to Hope's ears (but not unpleasant—part of him, a hitherto alien carnal id, found it rather favorable).

Enticed, perhaps, by that sensuous constrained sound or by the way Noel's fingers had spasmed into his back, Hope abandoned his inquisition of the pink scar for this mark he was currently leaving on the hunter; a provisional and organic mark, a reaction rather than a wound, a scar that would disappear from sight in minutes and from memory in the morning.

Hope's hands were no longer cold after thoroughly absorbing Noel's heat, but they still felt clammy when the pads of his fingers danced, traced, enveloped Noel's cock, exploring the movement of the foreskin, the shape of the testes. Noel fisted and twisted the bedsheets while his throat worked against the moist noises threatening to bubble from it. Hope tilted his head into the raw sounds, silken russet hair caressing his cheek as the clean scent of shampoo tickled him. Serpentine hips bucked once, involuntarily, tense, a silent plea. Noel was a wind-up toy turned too tight against him, vibrating with approaching abandon.

This was… ah! too much, a discord of salacious elements assaulting Hope's senses; even the sight of Noel's toes curling as a line of pleasure thrilled through him fed into his own body's reaction. Ordinary eroticism had never evoked such a strong (physical, mental) reaction in him before (not since those years of puberty—not since his mother died); and now his heart thudded in his ears and echoed between his legs. He licked dry lips, attuned to the tremors and pants of the young man against him, heightening his own desire to powerless levels.

Then he heard his name whispered like a warning before nails dug into his back, Noel bit against a sharp breath, muscles tightened, limbs twitched, and mercifully, the cacophony determined to drown Hope dimmed to a murmur.

Hope removed his shaking hands, stained, sticky, burning, and they hovered in the air uncertainly, as if seeking the familiarity of the frigidity Noel so hated. But the heat on his palms where Noel's own had bled into him persisted, and it seemed it had sunk into his veins and arteries, commanded by a traitorous heart, alighting all his senses with a poignant clarity, a lucidity more acute than they had ever reached in his twenty-seven years of life: he could hear his own blood boiling amid Noel's slowing breaths, smell his own prurience mingling with Noel's satiation, feel the soft, teasing weight of fabric on his lap as his hands still tingled with Noel's heat, and conducting it all, the presence of Noel's magnetism, pulling at him against his will.

Noel shifted back, hooded blue eyes assessing Hope's volatile state through a curtain of dark hair. He reached for Hope and Hope slapped his arm away with more violence than he meant, a startled cat swiping at something unexpected.

"No, I—" Hope fumbled for the words, not exactly sure by what he wanted to say. He didn't want reciprocation; his body was reacting without permission because this wasn't about… about himself or about sex. But there was an intimacy here, a line Hope knew he had crossed and he didn't want Noel to cross with him. Not yet, maybe not ever. Noel wasn't fucked up like him; certainly the self-possessed hunter never sought Hope the way Hope sought him.

Hope exhaled, a whistle through teeth, visibly deflating. However, if Noel persisted, Hope wouldn't deny him, because Noel was dangerous in ways Hope had no will to resist—not any longer.

But the hunter nodded at the refusal, accepting it without question. For a wild moment, Hope wished Noel would change his mind and touch him: any part of him, his hair or his face or his arm—because then he wouldn't have to think any more and just let Noel guide his compass.

The moment passed; Noel simply straightened, untangling his presence from Hope through a generous portion of personal space, smiling reassuringly. Hope looked away, biting the inside of his cheek.

The silence was the weight of a demon clinging to his back, a tangible, oppressive thing. He tried to turn the last several minutes into a blur (a scar). He had just jerked off his remaining friend (the rest scattered, out of contact, out of reach), who said it was 'not a big deal' and… and… and…? Hope knew he was going to break out into gasping laughter in a few moments because everything seemed so ludicrous right now. What the fuck was wrong with him, taking advantage of Noel's kindness—even to what end? If the people could see him now, their precious legendary Director, so inept with social matters, enjoying a voyeuristic moment (and that carnal id did enjoy it, grasping, squeezing, rubbing,  _knowing,_ evoking those reactions only for himself), why, not an angel at all! Nothing more than a selfish, vulgar—

"Stop." Noel leaned forward and pressed at the crease between Hope's brows, forcing the folds down. Hope started, embarrassed. He wasn't even sure why he was embarrassed, but the heat crept along his ears to camp on his cheeks all the same. Was he so easy to read? (Was that why he had difficulty reading Noel?) But at least Noel's touch didn't induce any passionate reactions; it did, however, stop those spiraling thoughts. He was in control again now.

"I'm gonna go ahead and clean up," Noel said, his face and voice placid. (' _It's not a big deal_ ,' he had said. So it wasn't. Hope had wanted to see his scars, had wanted to know Noel a little better. He wasn't sure if he had accomplished that, but Noel had been right. It wasn't a big deal—for Noel at least. Let whatever guilty demon rearing its head lie.) Noel shifted off the bed, toward the bathroom.

"...Noel."

"Hm?" Noel paused, glancing over his shoulder.

Hope's eyes trailed down the white lines striping the smooth skin of Noel's back, trying to read the story in them. The thumbprint of the clawmark on his thigh was visible now, right below a firm buttock. "Did you ever do anything like this with Serah?"

"No." Noel shrugged. "It's hard to explain but… she's gone through a lot. Just as much as anyone in this whole fucked up business. But I never…" And Noel shrugged again, a little helplessly. "I never got the impression she needed me."

Needed?

"So you think I need you?" Hope asked, enunciating each word carefully with no particular stress, rolling the syllables around in his mouth like peculiar candy. "Is that why—?"

( _You let me do whatever I wish upon you._ )

Noel shrugged a third time and his answering smile was mostly self-derisive, a twist of the mouth which made Hope subconsciously curl his stained fingers into a fist.

When Noel left him alone, Hope sat there listening to the fall of the shower, so much like that first day, but now there was a taste in his mouth he couldn't explain, left by a question Noel wouldn't answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly did not expect this story to drag on as long as it did...
> 
> Thanks for reading.


	15. clueless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a very silly thing. One of my bosses related a similar experience he had, so I had to use it.
> 
> I guess you could say it's from the same verse as 'out of your league,' though it would take place much later.

"Dad, Noel! Look!" Leonora dragged the two hapless men on either side of her to a window display. She released their hands to press her own against the glass, staring up with starry-eyes at the mannequins modeling the latest in teenage fashion. "What do you think? This one or that one?"

Over the rim of his glasses, Hope squinted at the dresses which so enraptured his daughter. "They look the same to me."

"Oh my gawd," Leonora moaned, pressing a hand to her forehead in exasperated despair. " _Anyone_  can see they're totally different, Dad."

"Yeah,  _Dad_ ," Noel smirked, "this one is obviously turquoise while that one is obviously aqua."

"Right?" Leonora latched onto Noel's arm, her kindred soul in trends. "I'm so glad you're around when I'm not to keep Dad's head on straight. What would he ever do without us?"

Hope met the twin grins aimed in his direction with a bland look. "If you'd like to discuss my failings amongst yourselves, I'll be happy to leave."

His daughter grabbed his hand. "Oh, Daddy, don't be like that. Mom said that even though you seem so smart, you're actually really clueless." Noel stifled a suspicious sound. "It's okay," she continued, "it's who you are and I love you anyway. Come on!" She resumed her titular position between her dad and his boyfriend, swinging their arms with hers as she dragged them along by the hand. "Let's get some bubble tea! My treat!"

"You shouldn't waste your allowance on frivolous things, Nora," Hope chided, trying to regain his fatherly dignity. It was a bit difficult when he was being manhandled by his daughter.

"Oh, this is from returning all those pads you bought," Leonora hummed.

"Ah…" Hope left it at that and hoped it would stay at that. He opened his mouth to quickly change the subject.

"Pads?" Noel tilted his head, confusion on his face.

Leonora's eyes grew bright with mischievous glee. "Oh—" Hope jerked her against his side in a hug that also conveniently smothered her mouth shut. Leonora had a predilection for exaggerating things, especially when it concerned embarrassing her father.

He smiled at Noel over her head. "It's just—"

She squirmed out from under his arm, skipping in her excitement. "Omigawd, Noel, you wanna know how clueless Dad is?"

"I have a pretty good idea," Noel drawled as Hope's eyes did their best impression of a pair of daggers on both the people he thought loved him, "but lay it on me, Princess."

"So I texted Dad—"

* * *

Hope glanced down at his phone.

_Dad, I started my period at school. D: Can you pick me up some pads when you get off work? I didn't bring any from my other home. :( Love you!_

He glanced back at up at the aisle, at the packages lining the shelves of the chain drugstore.

It's not that he wasn't unfamiliar with the menstruation cycle. He had paid attention in biology class. He had been married to a woman for six years. He had a daughter old enough to be ovulating for some time now.

He just never… really paid attention. Of course, that had been part of the reason his marriage fell apart—he just never paid attention. And what type or brand of 'sanitary napkins' his wife used really didn't rank up very high on the list of things to mind. They were just there, like her toothbrush or her shampoo. (To be fair, he couldn't recall those brands either.) He never wondered about them or read their boxes; his eyes just glided over this feminine reality in his search for more toilet paper or a new package of deodorant. And he never had to buy them for her on his own; Elida, like himself, had been always prepared.

When 'Aunt Flo' finally visited Leonora for the first time, Elida had been the one to handle it (and thankfully, it had happened when Leonora had been with her mother). So really, until now, Hope had never actually had to deal with this peculiar situation.

He wasn't embarrassed about purchasing a feminine hygiene product. It was just a biological cycle many women had to deal with—subsequently, so did the other people in their lives.

It was just… He had no idea there would be so  _many_.

The packages ranged from austerely demure to flowerly feminine, all pastel colored soft parcels or simple modernist boxes. Each promised something different: discreet! super absorbent! scented! long lasting! comfortable! maximum protection! Each seemed to be constructed different: pads, liners, tampons, cups; all for different types of 'flows.'

He glanced back down at his phone, as if the text would yield a clue on what to do—where to  _begin_.

Maybe he should call Elida… or Alyssa? Though he didn't really relish the reactions he'd get with this type of conversation with either of them. He did have some pride, no matter what certain people thought.

No, he could logically think through this on his own. It couldn't be that hard. He tried to recall commericials he saw on TV. Was what a child required different from an adult? She said 'pad' so that limited his choices to that category at least. But there were still so  _many_. Scented? Rose or baby powder? This one promised 'innovative design!' while this one promised 'you never knew you were wearing one!' Was price a factor in quality?

When Hope pushed the trolley up to the checkout clerk with his purchases and the lady just gave him a bored look, Hope felt pretty confident he got everything his daughter needed.

* * *

"You wouldn't  _believe_ all the stuff he bought! Oh my gawd, like, what was I gonna use all that for?"

Noel's lips twitched and he cleared his throat. "She's kidding, right?" he asked Hope. "You didn't really buy one of everything, did you?"

"What?" Leonora halted, releasing Noel's hand to poke him in the side indignantly. He jerked away with a squeak and Hope once more congratulated himself on revealing that ultimate weakness to his daughter for her to abuse. (He'd be abusing it himself later tonight.) "I'm not lying! He really did get tons of pads—like every brand ever!"

Hope cupped a hand around his daughter's mouth from behind, pulling her against him. He smiled good-humoredly at the people staring at the trio as they passed, though it was a bit strained.

Leonora wiggled against him; she was digging in her purse, the charms dangling from it jingling. She triumphantly fished out a thick fold of bills from her wallet, holding it up to collaborate her story. "See?" she said to Noel, muffled.

"I do see, Princess." Noel laughed.

Coolly, Hope plucked the money from her grasp. "Thank you."

She twisted around to glare at him; it didn't quite have the weight of her father's just yet and he just raised a brow at her. "Dad! That's my money!" She made a grab for it.

"No," he corrected, holding it above his head. "It's  _my_ money. If you had remained quiet, it could've been your money. So let this be a lesson on discretion." Heaven knows she needed it. Hope wasn't sure he was going to survive through her high school career at this rate.

"Daaaaad." Leonora's lip jutted out in a pout, but that rarely (sometimes) (usually) (often) worked on Hope these days. (That's what he told himself, anyway.)

Without any effort, Noel relieved the money from Hope's grasp, kissing Hope's forehead briefly to allay the heat from older man's glare. Noel was perfect in a lot of ways, but Hope really wished his boyfriend was just a bit shorter; it wasn't fair how often Noel abused their height differences to his own advantage.

"Okay, you two," Noel said, smoothly twitching the money away from Hope's reflexive attempt to retrieve it. "Now how about we go get that bubble tea—courtesy of the Princess' time of the month and His Clueless Majesty?"


End file.
